As a traditional processing method, the Nine-Steam-Nine-Bask method has been widely used in the special processing of Chinese medicinal materials. With the highly integrated design and innovation of infiltrating equipment, steaming equipment, drying equipment, and other equipment, a new type of integrated equipment for the Nine-Steam-Nine-Bask method was finally developed and successfully applied in Polygonatum cyrtonema processing. Moreover, seven new processes were explored. The longer the steaming time was, the more steaming and drying cycles, the lower the product recovery rate and the higher the energy consumption. The higher the steaming pressure was, the lower the product recovery rate, the higher the energy consumption and the shorter the drying time. The longer the drying time was, the lower the product recovery rate and polysaccharide content, and the higher the energy consumption. The best new process was XGY1, which had the highest overall score. The steaming process was the most time-consuming and energy-intensive production process, followed by the drying process. The obtained results can provide knowledgeable guidance for the further optimization of the integrated equipment of the Nine-Steam-Nine-Bask method and the development and application of technology for processing characteristic Chinese medicinal materials.
As zero-emission technologies, a daytime radiative cooling (RC) strategy developed recently, and photovoltaic (PV) and thermoelectric (TE) technologies have aroused great interest to reduce fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions. How to integrate these state-of-the-art technologies to maximise clean electricity from the sun and space remains a huge challenge, and the limit efficiency is still unclear. In this study, a spectral-splitting PV-TE hybrid system integrated with RC is proposed to maximise clean electricity from the sun and space without any emissions. For the sun acting as a typical constant heat-flux heat source, the current thermoelectric theory overestimates the thermoelectric efficiency highly since the theory is based on constant temperature-difference conditions. A new theory based on heat-flux conditions is employed to achieve maximum thermoelectric efficiency. The PV-TE hybrid system with RC is superior to the conventional hybrid system, not only in terms of higher efficiency but also in its 24-h operation capacity. In a system with a single-junction cell, the total efficiency with 30 suns (39.4%) is higher than the theoretical PV efficiency at 500 suns (38.2%). In a hybrid system with four-junction cells, total efficiency is over 65% which is superior to most current photoelectric and thermal power systems.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.