Some studies using regional climate models (RCMs) suggest a weakening of the climatological rain-shadow along the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountains during the western US cool-season. To identify the possible mechanisms of rain-shadow weakening under warming, a new set of 30-year, high-resolution (6 km) pseudo-global warming (PGW) simulations were analyzed...
As engineered nanomaterials (ENM) become more common in consumer products, it is crucial to rapidly assess toxicity of unique ENM. Previous studies rarely focused on standardizing nanotoxicity testing, leading to inconsistent and irreproducible results. This study characterized a variety of ENM of different size, shape, core type, and surface charge...
The hydrologic cycle on Earth comprises the transitions among the solid, liquid, and gaseous phases of water. Understanding the hydrologic cycle is of course important for climate science, but also for agricultural, drinking water, and disaster preparedness purposes. Improvements in satellite observations and general circulation models (GCMs) have led to...
The size, shape, and stability of a species’ dietary niche can both influence and reflect a variety of biological patterns, including species interactions, extinction risk, and ecosystem function. This is particularly apparent when dietary changes manifest at ecosystem and clade scales to profoundly affect macroecological and macroevolutionary trajectories. However, many...
Nonthermal electrical plasmas can allow energy intensive reactions to occur without the use of high operating temperatures or pressures. This is because the collisions of electrons accelerated through an electric field with molecules is the cause of reactions as opposed to thermal collisions between molecules. In this study, the production...
Effective storage and release of low-to-moderate temperature thermal energy (e.g. solar thermal or geothermal) could be transformational for applications such as space heating/cooling, domestic hot water, or off-grid cooking. Good candidates for thermal energy storage in this temperature range include latent heat storage (LHS) systems and thermochemical energy storage (TCES)...
The goal of this project is to better characterize particle movement in a multi-channel fluidized bed. Fluidized beds are commonly used for heat transfer with the rapid fluidization and homogeneous heat distribution. By characterizing this particle flow, it would allow for an improved understanding of the heat transfer mechanisms within...
Global energy needs are continuously increasing while fossil fuels remain an uncertain resource. With a growing population and demand for energy, alternative energy sources are being pursued to power the future. Fossil fuels are an unsustainable resource that brings along problems of climate change and atmospheric pollution. Concentrated solar power...
Finding renewable sources of agricultural fertilizer will be necessary to ensure a stable food supply for future generations. Phosphorus is of particular concern, since mining phosphate rock is the main source and reserves are forecasted to deplete in the next 50 – 200 years. Human urine contains substantial amounts of...
Solar thermal energy can be stored and later converted to electrical energy using a combination of thermochemical energy storage (TCES) and a thermoelectric generator (TEG). This TEG and TCES combination illustrates a potential route for clean electricity storage from renewable energy. TCES allows for thermal energy from the sun to...