the biggest challenges faced in big cities are greenhouse gas emission and growing energy needs. efficient utilization of existing infrastructures has a prominent role in response to the challenges. energy hub approach embraces performance of different energy networks. energy hub is defined as a super node in electrical system receiving distinctive energy carriers such as gas and electricity in...

Solar-thermal fuels reversibly store solar energy in the chemical bonds of molecules by photoconversion, and can release this stored energy in the form of heat upon activation. Many conventional photoswichable molecules could be considered as solar thermal fuels, although they suffer from low energy density or short lifetime in the photoinduced high-energy metastable state, rendering their prac...

The ability to harvest thermal energy and manipulate heat fluxes has recently attracted a great deal of research interest because this is critical to achieve efficient solar-to-thermal energy conversion in the technology of concentrated solar thermal collectors. Thermal metamaterials with engineered thermal conduction are often utilized to control the diffusive heat flow in ways otherwise not p...

Thermal infrared imaging is a valuable tool to perform non-destructive qualitative tests and to investigate buildings envelope thermal-energy behavior. The assessment of envelope thermal insulation, ventilation, air leakages, and HVAC performance can be implemented through the analysis of each thermogram corresponding to an object surface temperature. Thermography also allows the identification...

Latent heat storage using phase change materials (PCMs) is one of the most efficient methods to store thermal energy. Therefore, PCM have been applied to increase thermal energy storage capacity of different systems. The use of PCM provides higher heat storage capacity and more isothermal behaviour during charging and discharging compared to sensible heat storage. Moreover, thermal energy stora...

The aim of the present work is to determine the influence of C5 substitution on the photophysical properties of 2-thiopyrimidines (2-TPyr). For this purpose, 2-thiouracil, 5-t-butyl-2-thiouracil and 2-thiothymine (TU, BTU and TT, respectively) have been selected as target thionucleobases for the experimental studies and, in parallel, for DFT theoretical calculations. The UV spectra displayed by...

A simplified approach is introduced to describe the thermal behavior of a thin metal film exposed to picoseconds thermal pulses. The approach is based on the assumption that the metal film thermal behavior occurs in two separate stages. In the first stage, electron gas transmits its energy to the solid lattice through electron-phonon coupling and other mechanisms of energy transport are negligi...