The innovation uses the disparity between dry and wet conditions of the air, by storing the dryness or wetness in a hygroscopic material. When the surrounding air is drier or wetter than the hygroscopic material, the potential energy difference between moisture in the air and that in the material can be used as a way of transporting heat from the material to the air and vice versa. A simple way this energy can be used is for heating and cooling of a building. For example, a large storage of adsorbing material can be dried in the hot summer, and allowed to re-adsorb water in the cold winter, thus gaining heat that can be used for domestic heating.

An apparatus and a method are provided for a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) air filter to remove airborne molecular contaminants and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from air within building spaces. The air filter comprises a support frame having a shape and size suitable to orient the air filter within a HVAC system. A compound filter medium is retained within the support frame to remove the airborne molecular contaminants and VOCs from air flowing through the HVAC system. A portion of the first media layer is pleated and may comprise a combination of media layers configured to exhibit a relatively high filtration efficiency and a low air pressure drop across the filter medium. A second portion of the filter medium is coupled to the first portion and maintains a uniform distribution of the pleats with the first portion.

A method and a device intended to purify pollutants from an exhaust gas flow of an internal combustion engine operated with sulphur containing fuel, in particular of a ship internal combustion engine operated with heavy fuel oil, are provided. Exhaust gas flow is in contact with a solid adsorption agent of the adsorber in a first step and binding in particular acid pollutants, which comprise sulphur dioxide and sulphur trioxide. The exhaust gas flow is then guided by a second stage of the adsorber realising fine purification of the exhaust gas flow. The adsorption agent of the second stage is used in the first stage as an adsorption agent.

An apparatus and a method are provided for a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) air filter to remove airborne molecular contaminants and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from air within building spaces is disclosed. The air filter comprises a support frame having a shape and size suitable to orient the air filter within a HVAC system. A compound filter medium is retained within the support frame to remove the airborne molecular contaminants and VOCs from air flowing through the HVAC system. A method of removing airborne molecular contaminants and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from air is disclosed that includes an operation of coupling a first media layer, comprising uniformly disposed pleats, with a second media layer, comprising a woven fiber material, so as to form a compound filter medium.

A method for producing a porous boron nitride material. The method comprises providing a mixture comprising a first nitrogen-containing organic compound, a second nitrogen-containing organic compound and a boron-containing compound. The method further comprises heating the mixture to cause thermal degradation of the mixture and form a porous boron nitride material.

Certain embodiments of the invention are directed to nitrogen rich two dimensional hexagonal C.sub.3N.sub.4.6 mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride (gMCN) material formed from cyclic amino-triazole precursors, the gMCN having a rod shape morphology and an average pore diameter between 4 to 6 nm.

A system for processing recirculation air recovered from an aircraft cabin includes a mixing chamber and a carbon dioxide removal system. The carbon dioxide removal system has an inlet for recovered recirculation air from the aircraft cabin, an outlet to the mixing chamber; at least two assemblies of carbon dioxide sorbent that are thermally linked, a CO.sub.2 outlet valve; and a controller for managing desorption of carbon dioxide from the sorbent depending on aircraft status. The mixing chamber has an inlet from the carbon dioxide removal system, an inlet from an environmental control system, and an outlet connected to the aircraft cabin.

A novel integrated filter device for the concurrent capture, filtration or separation of particle, chemicals, vapors and or/gasses from liquid or solid flows. The device has a filtration macrostructure substrate and a thin film coating over the macrostructure substrate which allows for compact and efficient capture, filtration and separations. Device may serve as a platform for chemical reactions. The device minimized problems associated with traditional filters, chemical sorbents or reactors and provided for enhanced collection and analysis of target materials. The methodology for construction also allows for modular assembly in various arrangements including a stacked configuration. The devices may be used collaboratively and cooperatively with other collection and separation technologies.

The present application provides a method for preparing lanthanide fluoride two-dimensional porous nanosheets and belongs to the field of novel materials. In the present application, mixing a water-soluble lanthanide metal salt and an aqueous solution of sodium acetate in a nitrogen atmosphere to obtain a mixed solution, and adding an aqueous solution of fluorine-containing salt to the mixed solution obtained for precipitation reaction to produce lanthanide fluoride two-dimensional porous nanosheets. In the preparation process provided by the present application, no additional surfactant or template agent needs to be added, the pollution of the surfactant to the surface of the prepared material is avoided and the tedious after-treatment steps to template agent are reduced. Accordingly, the large-scale production can be realized, and the lanthanide fluoride two-dimensional porous nanosheets constructed by nanoparticles are prepared in large scale by one step. Moreover, no other organic solvents are required, and the pollution to the environment during the preparation process is avoided.

Systems and methods for capturing carbon dioxide (CO.sub.2) in exhaust gases of a vehicle include delivering the exhaust gas to a cooled section of a rotary contactor, the rotary contactor including openings that extend from a first side of the rotary contactor to a second side of the rotary contactor. The CO.sub.2 of the exhaust gas is adsorbed with a sorbent of the cooled section of the rotary contactor, where the non-CO.sub.2 components of the exhaust gas pass through the openings. The cooled section of the rotary contactor is heated with a hot fluid of the vehicle to release the adsorbed CO.sub.2 and convert the cooled section of the rotary contactor to a heated section of the rotary contactor. The heated section of the rotary contactor is cooled to convert the heated section of the rotary contactor back to the cooled section of the rotary contactor.