Electrical double layer capacitors (supercapacitors) were fabricated using activated carbon as the active material and polyvinylidine fluoride (PVDF) as a binder with a suitable conductive additive (MWCNTs) together in an optimized ratio. The supercapacitor cells were assembled using an aqueous solution of 0.5M Na2SO4 as the electrolyte. These cells had an average capacitance of 1.7F each as me...

Both the Vogel Spindle and Spanish Bush systems will allow for the development of a “pedestrian orchard”. A pedestrian orchard is defined as an orchard where two-thirds of the crop can be harvested from the ground, without the use of tall ladders (Fig. 1). Harvesting fruit from the ground greatly enhances worker productivity. In a study that I conducted in The Dalles, Oregon pickers were able t...

Emerging nonlinear optical spectroscopies enable deeper insight into the intricate world of interactions and dynamics of complex molecular systems. 2D electronic spectroscopy appears to be especially well suited for studying multichromophoric complexes such as light-harvesting complexes of photosynthetic organisms as it allows direct observation of couplings between the pigments and charts dyna...

Colloidal Nanocrystals (NCs) with fluorescence originating from surface complexes are successfully prepared. The components of these NCs range from insulator, semiconductor to metal, with either pure phase, doped or core/shell structures. The photoluminescence of these NCs can be reversibly tuned across the visible to infrared spectrum, and even allow multi-color emission. A light emitting devi...

The main objective of this study was to assess Radon concentration in the harvested rainwater (HRW) at the household level in Yatta area, Palestine. HRW is mainly used for drinking as it is the major source of water for domestic uses due to water scarcity. Ninety HRW samples from the household cisterns were collected from six localities (a town and five villages) and Radon concentrations were m...

We present the first implementation of femtosecond soft X-ray spectroscopy as an ultrafast direct probe of the excited-state valence orbitals in solution-phase molecules. This method is applied to photoinduced spin crossover of [Fe(tren(py)3)](2+), where the ultrafast spin-state conversion of the metal ion, initiated by metal-to-ligand charge-transfer excitation, is directly measured using the ...