A large increase in phosphorus (P) solubilization from hydroxyapatite using ozonized biochar has been experimentally demonstrated here for the first time. Briefly, incubation of insoluble phosphate material hydroxyapatite with wet-ozonized biochar, including its filtrate liquid, for 2 days, resulted in a much higher concentration of solubilized phosphate (569.9 mg/L) than that (0.145 mg/L) of the control in which hydroxyapatite was incubated with the nonozonized biochar and its filtrate. The associated calcium solubilization pattern was also observed in the experiment. 31 Phosphorus NMR analysis confirmed the solubilized phosphorus to be mostly in the form of HPO 4 2− . Excitation emission matrix spectroscopy showed the prevalence of humic-like substances in ozonized biochar filtrate, which resulted in stronger P solubilization. This study indicated that the P solubilization may be accomplished through at least one of the following molecular mechanisms: (a) protonic effect, (b) cation exchange, and (c) anion exchange. This green chemistry with ozonized biochar may lead to a new approach to unlock P from "insoluble" phosphate mineral phases.

Single-crystal, low-cost, low-temperature, hydrothermal synthesis ZnO nanorods were grown on ZnO fine grained random nanocrystalline seed layers prepared by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and benchmarked against spin coating techniques for seed layers. As the growth temperature increased to 90 °C, more nanorods were observed on the samples. Increasing the growth time from 16 h to 24 h resulted in higher nanorod density for the ALD seeded samples, but less nanorods for the spin-coated seeded samples. Our work demonstrates that the final density of ZnO nanorods and their shape and size are primarily influenced by the characteristics of the ZnO seed layer, such as composition, morphology, grain size, impurity content and thickness, as well as the time spent heated. At ∼10 nm the ALD generated random polycrystalline seed layer grains were one order of magnitude smaller compared to the spin coating generated seed layer grains which appear structurally different as ∼100 nm columnar grains. This morphological seed layer difference caused the ZnO nanorods grown on spin coated seed layers to reach only ∼34% of the average nanorod length achieved on ALD seeds with comparable rod diameter and can also account for the diminished nanorod density. The exact mechanism of how the seed layer affects nucleation and subsequent nanorod growth is unknown, but results suggest that there is a significant impact. Future research can be directed to investigating the ability of metal nanoparticles to self-assemble on these nanorods and to further nanoscale catalysis.

This paper desaibes the development of thermally efficient compact fluorescent fuctures. Experimental data shows that decreases in fixture efficiency can approach 20% due to elevated temperature conditions inside the lamp compartment. These elevated temperatures inaease the minimum lamp wall temperature of the compact fluorescent lamp and reduce the light output and efficacy of the lamp ballast system.