Bücher der Reihe Materials and Energy

Solid state power sources have developed remarkably in the last three decades owing to improvements in technology and a greater understanding of the underlying basic sciences.

This invaluable book provides a broad and detailed introduction to the fascinating and hot research subject of transformation of biomass-related materials to biofuels. Biofuel production can be categorized into a variety of novel conversion and refinery development technologies. However, biomass recalcitrance is the biggest challenge blocking the way in biofuel conversion. This book provides an enlightening view of the frontiers in leading pretreatments, downstream enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation technology, corrosion issues in biofuel and merging biofuels technology into a pulp mill to pave the way for future large-scale biofuel production.

A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer (monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness.

This book describes the applications of ultrafast laser technology to studies of materials and processes relevant to industry today, including ultrafast laser ablation where fundamental studies led to the development of the world''s first femtosecond photomask repair tool. This tool has been successfully employed by a number of semiconductor manufacturing companies worldwide to repair photomask defects, saving hundreds of millions in production costs. Photoelectron spectroscopy utilizing femtosecond pulses of soft and hard coherent X-ray pulses has been used to study ultrafast electron dynamics in materials. Pump/probe photoelectron spectroscopic techniques have been developed to study technologically relevant metal-oxide-semiconductor structures providing key device information such as effective work functions, semiconductor band bending and defect-related charging in technologically important oxides. Additional applications to thin film photovoltaics and organic light emitting materials are covered as well. An overview of different types of ultrafast lasers relevant to industrial uses will be given followed by a basic discussion of the physics and material science of their application.

This book identifies modern topics and current trends of structural and soft matter aspects of conjugated polymers and oligomers. Each chapter recognizes an active research line where structural perspective dominates research and therefore the book covers fundamental aspects of persistent conjugated polymer backbone, water soluble conjugated polyelectrolytes and surfactants, conjugated molecules and biomolecules and DNA and the advanced use of synchrotron radiation and electron microscopy to find out structural details in conjugated molecule films and devices as well as under ambient and extreme conditions.

This book provides an extensive review of the theory of transport and recombination properties in semiconductors. The emphasis is placed on electrical and optical techniques. There is a presentation of the latest experimental and theoretical techniques used to analyze minority-carrier lifetime. The relevant hardware and instrumentation are described. The newest techniques of lifetime mapping are presented. The issues are discussed relating to effects that mask carrier lifetime in certain device structures. The discrepancy between photoconductive and photoluminescence measurement results are analyzed.

The book presents chapters from world leaders on water desalination advances with respect to processes, separations materials, and energy and environmental considerations. It provides a balanced discussion of the mature and newer desalination technologies and provides a fundamental assessment of the potential of emerging approaches. Realistic assessments for the feasibility of energy extraction from salinity gradients, desalting high salinity source water, membrane distillation, capacitive deionization, are among the topics discussed. Also, among the topics discussed in the book are recent advances in the desalination application of nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes, and surface structuring of membranes.