Search results for "Energy engineering"
showing 10 items of 1099 documents
A Comprehensive Model for the Auto-Ignition Prediction in Spark Ignition Engines Fueled With Mixtures of Gasoline and Methane-Based Fuel
2018
The introduction of natural gas (NG) in the road transport market is proceeding through bifuel vehicles, which, endowed of a double-injection system, can run either with gasoline or with NG. A third possibility is the simultaneous combustion of NG and gasoline, called double-fuel (DF) combustion: the addition of methane to gasoline allows to run the engine with stoichiometric air even at full load, without knocking phenomena, increasing engine efficiency of about 26% and cutting pollutant emissions by 90%. The introduction of DF combustion into series production vehicles requires, however, proper engine calibration (i.e., determination of DF injection and spark timing maps), a process which…
Porphyrins and BODIPY as Building Blocks for Efficient Donor Materials in Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells
2017
International audience; Advances in the synthesis and application of highly efficient polymers and small molecules over the last two decades have enabled the rapid advancement in the development of organic solar cells and photovoltaic technology as a promising alternative to conventional solar cells, based on silicon and other inorganic semiconducting materials. Among the different types of organic semiconducting materials, porphyrins and BODIPY-based small molecules and conjugated polymers attract high interest as efficient semiconducting organic materials for dye sensitized solar cells and bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. The highest power conversion efficiency exceeding 9% has be…
Ternary Organic Solar Cell with a Near‐Infrared Absorbing Selenophene–Diketopyrrolopyrrole‐Based Nonfullerene Acceptor and an Efficiency above 10%
2020
Nonfullerene Polymer Solar Cells Reaching a 9.29% Efficiency Using a BODIPY-Thiophene Backboned Donor Material
2018
A conjugated polymer donor containing BODIPY-thiophene dyads in the backbone, P(BdP-EHT), combined with a low bandgap nonfullerene acceptor (SMDPP) consisting of carbazole and diketopyrrolopyrrole units linked with a tetracyanobutadiene acceptor π-linker, was used to design bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells. After the optimization of the donor to acceptor weight ratio and solvent vapor annealing of the P(BdP-EHT):SMDPP active layer, the resulting polymer solar cell showed an overall power conversion efficiency of 9.29%, which is significantly higher than that for the polymer solar cell based on PC71BM (7.41%) processed under identical conditions. This improved power conversion efficie…
Lithium ion conducting PVdF-HFP composite gel electrolytes based on N-methoxyethyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)-imide ionic li…
2010
Blends of PVDF-HFP and ionic liquids (ILs) are interesting for application as electrolytes in plastic Li batteries. They combine the advantages of the gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) swollen by conventional organic liquid electrolytes with the nonflammability, and high thermal and electrochemical stability of ILs. In this work we prepare and characterize PVDF-HFP composite membranes swollen with a solution of LiTFSI in ether-functionalized pyrrolidinium-imide (PYRA12O1). The membranes are filled in with two different types of silica: i) mesoporous SiO2 (SBA-15) and a commercial nano-size one (HiSilTM T700). The ionic conductivity and the electrochemical properties of the gel electrolytes ar…
Reduced Recombination Losses in Evaporated Perovskite Solar Cells by Postfabrication Treatment
2021
The photovoltaic perovskite research community has now developed a large set of tools and techniques to improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE). One such arcane trick is to allow the finished devices to dwell in time, and the PCE often improves. Herein, a mild postannealing procedure is implemented on coevaporated perovskite solar cells confirming a substantial PCE improvement, mainly attributed to an increased open-circuit voltage (V\(_{OC}\)). From a V\(_{OC}\) of around 1.11 V directly after preparation, the voltage improves to more than 1.18 V by temporal and thermal annealing. To clarify the origin of this annealing effect, an in-depth device experimental and simulation character…
On the Improved Current Pulse method for the thermal diffusive characterization of lithiated ceramic pebble beds
2012
Abstract Packed pebble beds are granular systems composed of small particles generally arranged in irregular lattices and surrounded by a gas filling their interstitial spaces. They show non-linear and coupled thermal and mechanical behaviours, which are under theoretical and experimental investigation to set-up a realistic constitutive model to be adopted for design-oriented purposes. At the Department of Nuclear Engineering (DIN) of the University of Palermo a realistic constitutive model of fusion-relevant pebble beds thermo-mechanical behaviour was developed adopting a “continuous” approach, based on the assumption that a pebble bed could be considered as a continuous, homogeneous and i…
The Shielding Effect of Drilling Fluids on Measurement While Drilling Tool Downhole Compasses—The Effect of Drilling Fluid Composition, Contaminants,…
2016
Materials such as added clays, weight materials, drill solids, and metallic wear products in the drilling fluid are known to distort the geomagnetic field at the location of the measurement while drilling (MWD) tool magnetometers that are used to measure the direction of well path. This distortion contributes to substantial errors in determination of azimuth while drilling deviated wells. These errors may result in missing the target of a long deviated 12 ¼ in. section in the range of 1–200 m, representing a significant cost to be mitigated. The error becomes even more pronounced if drilling occurs in arctic regions close to the magnetic north pole (or south pole). The effect on the magneto…
High performance p-type segmented leg of misfit-layered cobaltite and half-Heusler alloy
2015
In this study, a segmented p-type leg of doped misfit-layered cobaltite Ca_(2.8)Lu_(0.15)Ag_(0.05)Co_4O_(9+δ) and half-Heusler Ti_(0.3)Zr_(0.35)Hf_(0.35)CoSb_(0.8)Sn_(0.2) alloy was fabricated and characterized. The thermoelectric properties of single components, segmented leg, and the electrical contact resistance of the joint part were measured as a function of temperature. The output power generation characteristics of segmented legs were characterized in air under various temperature gradients, ΔT, with the hot side temperature up to 1153 K. At ΔT ≈ 756 K, the maximum conversion efficiency reached a value of ∼5%, which is about 65% of that expected from the materials without parasitic l…
First Principles Modeling of Pd-doped (La,Sr)(Co,Fe)O3Complex Perovskites
2016
(La,Sr)(Co,Fe)O3 (LSCF) perovskites are well known promising materials for cathodes of solid oxide fuel cells. In order to reduce cathode operational temperature, doping on B-sublattice with different metals was suggested. Indeed, as it was shown recently experimentally, doping with low Pd content increases oxygen vacancy concentration which is one of factors controlling oxygen transport in fuel cells. In this Communication, we modeled this material using first principles DFT calculations combined with supercell model. The charge density redistribution, density of states, and local lattice distortion around palladium ions are analyzed and reduction of the vacancy formation energy confirmed.