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Ruchi Gakhar

Bio: Ruchi Gakhar is an academic researcher from Idaho National Laboratory. The author has contributed to research in topics: Molten salt & Chemistry. The author has an hindex of 12, co-authored 30 publications receiving 384 citations. Previous affiliations of Ruchi Gakhar include University of Nevada, Reno & Indian Institutes of Technology.

Papers
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a review of the prospects and opportunities for using alternative fuels in different applications, and discuss the properties of these fuels and their performance as a fuel.
Abstract: The concern over rapid depletion of fossil fuels has prompted the search for alternative fuels having efficiencies similar to those found for the conventional fuels being used today. The present article reviews the prospects and opportunities for using alternative fuels in different applications. The properties of these fuels and their performance as a fuel are discussed in detail. Vegetable oils present a very promising scenario of functioning as alternatives to fossil fuels. Use of biodiesel in a conventional diesel engine results in a substantial reduction in unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and nitrogen oxides. Different alternative fuels have been compared with the conventional fuels, and clearly the consumption of the latter can be significantly decreased by the use the blended fuels. Most of the alternative fuels have properties similar to those of the existing fuels, and therefore the technology required to handle them is already well known. Hydrogen is an exception to this, and its ignition properties are quite different from those of the conventional fuels. Difficulties are thus expected during the storage, transport, and use of hydrogen as a fuel. Other technologies are also discussed such as alternative routes to equivalents of conventional fuels, like CTL. Finally, the emulsified fuels including the use of oxygenates have been discussed.

143 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a modified sol-gel technique was used for the case specific study of a single and nominal doping concentrations of 0.02% Ag and Ni in TiO2, which has led to unusual changes with respect to its microstructure, grain boundary distribution, pore size distribution and surface properties, optical and photo-catalytic activity towards complete degradation of organic pollutant dye within few minutes of visible and UV light irradiation.

44 citations

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TL;DR: In this article, the anodic nanoporous β-Bi2O3 samples were tested as photoanodes for solar water splitting application in 0.5 M Na2SO4 (pH:5.8), and 1 M KOH (pHO:13.7), and the photocurrent decayed continuously with time from an initial value of 0.95 mA/cm2 under 1-sun illumination at a bias potential of 1.5 VRHE.
Abstract: Ordered nanoporous bismuth oxide layer consisting of metastable β-Bi2O3 phase that showed n-type semiconductivity was synthesized by a simple electrochemical anodization of bismuth substrate. When the anodic nanoporous β-Bi2O3 samples were tested as photoanodes for solar water splitting application in 0.5 M Na2SO4 (pH:5.8), and 1 M KOH (pH:13.7), the photocurrent decayed continuously with time from an initial value of 0.95 mA/cm2 under 1-sun illumination at a bias potential of 1.5 VRHE. Accumulation of photo generated holes at the photoanode/ electrolyte was attributed to the photocurrent decay. Addition of methanol as sacrificial hole scavenger was not found to be effective for the bismuth oxide photoanodes. When hydrogen peroxide was added to the 0.5 M Na2SO4 electrolyte, the photocurrent density increased to ∼4 mA/cm2 and was stable for more than 1 h of illumination of AM1.5 global light at 1.5 VRHE. Addition of hydrogen peroxide to the 1 M KOH solution showed a gradual increase in the photocurrent density for the first 300 seconds of light illumination to a maximum value of ∼10 mA/cm2 at 0.65 VRHE and then it decreased continuously. The high photocurrent density of nanoporous β-Bi2O3 in 1 M KOH + 0.3 M H2O2 was be attributed to the presence of photo-converted Bi2O4-x phase which harvested more light in the visible wavelengths. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 License (CC BY-NC-ND, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is not changed in any way and is properly cited. For permission for commercial reuse, please email: oa@electrochem.org. [DOI: 10.1149/2.0721607jes] All rights reserved.

38 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the photoelectrochemical performance of CdSSe quantum dots tethered to a framework of vertically oriented titania (TiO2) nanotubes was studied.

30 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
20 Aug 2018
TL;DR: Recent topics in nanoscale Bi-based photocatalysts, including doping, changing stoichiometry, solid solutions, ultrathin nanosheets, hierarchical and hollow architectures, conventional heterojunctions, direct Z-scheme junctions, and surface modification of conductive materials and semiconductors, are reviewed.
Abstract: Nanoscale Bi-based photocatalysts are promising candidates for visible-light-driven photocatalytic environmental remediation and energy conversion. However, the performance of bulk bismuthal semiconductors is unsatisfactory. Increasing efforts have been focused on enhancing the performance of this photocatalyst family. Many studies have reported on component adjustment, morphology control, heterojunction construction, and surface modification. Herein, recent topics in these fields, including doping, changing stoichiometry, solid solutions, ultrathin nanosheets, hierarchical and hollow architectures, conventional heterojunctions, direct Z-scheme junctions, and surface modification of conductive materials and semiconductors, are reviewed. The progress in the enhancement mechanism involving light absorption, band structure tailoring, and separation and utilization of excited carriers, is also introduced. The challenges and tendencies in the studies of nanoscale Bi-based photocatalysts are discussed and summarized.

396 citations

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TL;DR: In this paper, the feasibility and impacts of all stages from production to final use of hydrogen as a resource for mobility purposes are discussed, and the main challenges and research fields that need greater engagement by researchers and political decision-makers.

283 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the worldwide background, prospects and challenges of natural gas fuel and natural gas fueled vehicles along with environmental and economic aspects of compressed natural gas as a transformation fuel.
Abstract: Increasing urbanization and industrialization have led to a phenomenal growth in transportation demand worldwide, coupled with a concentration of vehicles in metropolitan cities. With regard to increasingly stringent emission legislation natural gas is gaining interest as a transportation fuel with worldwide over 19 million natural gas vehicles in operation. This paper presents the worldwide background, prospects and challenges of natural gas fuel and natural gas fueled vehicles along with environmental and economic aspects of compressed natural gas as a transformation fuel. Technical aspects of compressed natural gas properties, storage, safety problems and its effect on engine performance, efficiency, emissions and barriers to natural gas vehicles adaptation are discussed in detail. The main indicators selected for the comparative assessment of natural gas as vehicular fuel are: economic, emission performance and safety aspect. The results showed that CNG has several advantages over both diesel and gasoline fuel, including considerable emission and cost reductions.

276 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The reusability studies showed that the nanocatalyst can be reused efficiently for 3 cycles and the optimum conditions for transesterification was found to be oil to methanol molar ratio of 1:8 and reaction temperature of 55 °C for 60 min of reaction time by response surface method.

240 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Abstract: Direct injection diesel engines are more popular in the automotive sector than spark ignition (SI) engines due to its fuel lean operation However, the demand of fossil fuel is rising day by day and hence the major fuel source of diesel engine, the petroleum based fuel, is depleting rapidly Many countries depend mainly on imported fossil fuels due to lack of fuel reserves and it has great impact on the economy In addition to this, the major concerns of diesel engine are its oxides of nitrogen and smoke emissions Therefore, for the past several decades extensive efforts are being made to search for alternate fuels to overcome the dependence on fossil fuel and environment pollution In this regard, several alternate fuels namely hydrogen, oxygenated fuels like alcohol fuels, dimethyl ether and biodiesel fuels etc, have been extensively analysed Recent studies show that biodiesel is one of the most promising alternate fuels for diesel engines because of its biodegradable, oxygenated, sulphur free and renewable characteristics Hence, it is getting the attention of researchers all over the world The blends of biodiesel with fossil diesel have many benefits like reduction in emissions, lower engine wear, lesser engine oil consumption and comparable thermal efficiency vis-a-vis diesel fuel Exhaustive experimental works have been carried out to analyse the suitability of biodiesel fuel as alternate fuel and to explore their advantages in diesel engines Hence, this paper is attempted to present a comprehensive review on the performance, combustion and emission characteristics of some important biodiesel fuels on diesel engines This comprehensive review on the published literature will be helpful to the researchers to understand the state-of-the-art technology of the biodiesel fuelled compression ignition engine

238 citations