Search results for "efficiency"
showing 10 items of 1430 documents
Hierarchizing Energy Saving Strategies in Wine Industry by Advanced Modelling of Chilling Units Operation
2019
Wineries are energy intensive industries and in order to make the production process more sustainable, solutions for an efficient use of energy should be implemented. Large surveys conducted in the wineries sector have highlighted the importance of performing accurate energy audits and have identified in the installation of efficient cooling/refrigeration systems the most promising solutions in a variety of cases. Unfortunately, the savings achieved by such energy efficient solutions is often calculated by highly simplified approaches, which do not take into consideration the actual operating conditions of the equipment (highly variable on a seasonal and daily basis). In this paper a system…
Towards the first proof of the concept of a Reverse ElectroDialysis - Membrane Distillation Heat Engine
2019
Abstract The coupling of Reverse Electrodialysis with Membrane Distillation is a promising option for the conversion of waste heat into electricity. This study evaluates the performances of the integrated system under different operating conditions, employing validated model and correlations. This work provides a detailed description of the behaviour of a real RED-MD heat engine and indicates the set of inlet concentrations, velocities and equipment size which returns the highest cycle exergy efficiency. These operating conditions were selected for the pilot plant developed within the EU-funded project RED Heat to Power. For the first time, a perspective analysis was also included, consider…
Thermolytic reverse electrodialysis heat engine: model development, integration and performance analysis
2019
Abstract Salinity gradient heat engines represent an innovative and promising way to convert low-grade heat into electricity by employing salinity gradient technology in a closed-loop configuration. Among the aqueous solutions which can be used as working fluid, ammonium bicarbonate-water solutions appear very promising due to their capability to decompose at low temperature. In this work, an experimentally validated model for a reverse electrodialysis heat engine fed with ammonium bicarbonate-water solutions was developed. The model consists of two validated sub-models purposely integrated, one for the reverse electrodialysis unit and the other for the stripping/absorption regeneration uni…
Theoretical efficiency limits for thermoradiative energy conversion
2015
Published version of an article in the journal: Journal of Applied Physics. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4907392 A new method to produce electricity from heat called thermoradiative energy conversion is analyzed. The method is based on sustaining a difference in the chemical potential for electron populations above and below an energy gap and let this difference drive a current through an electric circuit. The difference in chemical potential originates from an imbalance in the excitation and de-excitation of electrons across the energy gap. The method has similarities to thermophotovoltaics and conventional photovoltaics. While photovoltaic cells absorb…
Performance improvement of a Savonius water rotor with novel blade shapes
2021
Abstract Savonius water rotor is a prominent drag based turbine able to extract energy available in flowing water with low velocity like river streams, tidal currents or other man made water canals. However, in view of its low performance, an enhanced design of the rotor blades is necessary to better its efficiency. Therefore, the present study aims to improve the efficiency of Savonius rotor by changing the blade design. Different blade shapes were investigated numerically using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Using conventional design, the peak power coefficient was found to be 0.166 at tip-speed ratio of 0.78. However, the peak power coefficient reaches 0.184 using the optimal blade …
Efficient Hot Electron Transfer in Quantum Dot-Sensitized Mesoporous Oxides at Room Temperature
2018
Hot carrier cooling processes represent one of the major efficiency losses in solar energy conversion. Losses associated with cooling can in principle be circumvented if hot carrier extraction toward selective contacts is faster than hot carrier cooling in the absorber (in so-called hot carrier solar cells). Previous work has demonstrated the possibility of hot electron extraction in quantum dot (QD)-sensitized systems, in particular, at low temperatures. Here we demonstrate a room-temperature hot electron transfer (HET) with up to unity quantum efficiency in strongly coupled PbS quantum dot-sensitized mesoporous SnO2. We show that the HET efficiency is determined by a kinetic competition b…
Excitonic States in Semiconducting Two-dimensional Perovskites
2018
Hybrid organic/inorganic perovskites have emerged as efficient semiconductor materials for applications in photovoltaic solar cells with conversion efficiency above 20 \%. Recent experiments have synthesized ultra-thin two-dimensional (2D) organic perovskites with optical properties similar to those of 2D materials like monolayer MoS$_2$: large exciton binding energy and excitonic effects at room temperature. In addition, 2D perovskites are synthesized with a simple fabrication process with potential low-cost and large-scale manufacture. Up to now, state-of-the-art simulations of the excitonic states have been limited to the study of bulk organic perovskites. A large number of atoms in the …
Regeneration units for thermolytic salts applications in water & power production: State of the art, experimental and modelling assessment
2021
Abstract Thermolytic solutions are often proposed as high salinity or “draw” stream to generate a chemical potential driving force in Salinity Gradient Power (SGP) and Forward Osmosis (FO) technologies. Depleted “draw” solutions exiting the process can be regenerated by a thermal process powered at very-low grade heat, which is able to decompose the salt into gaseous ammonia and carbon dioxide, which can be stripped and then reabsorbed in the draw solution, restoring its initial concentration. In this work, two different experimental prototypes for the regeneration of ammonium bicarbonate aqueous solution were designed, built and tested. The effect of several operating parameters on the reg…
Determination of limiting current density and current efficiency in electrodialysis units
2018
Abstract A crucial parameter for the design and operation of electrodialysis (ED) units is the limiting current density (LCD). This is often identified with the diffusion-limited current density, which corresponds to the complete solute depletion in the layer adjacent to the membrane. Current-voltage curves obtained from measurements with electrodes in contact with the solution (i.e. without membranes) are consistent with this interpretation and exhibit a horizontal plateau identifying LCD. However, real ED systems show more complex behaviours, with a reduced-slope tract instead of a plateau and a third region in which the current increases more markedly (overlimiting current). The phenomen…
User-oriented evaluation of mechanical single-channel axial pipettes.
2013
Hand tools should be designed so that they are comfortable to use, fit the hand and are user-oriented. Six different manual, single-channel axial pipettes were evaluated for such objective outcomes as muscular activity, wrist postures and efficiency, as well as for subjective outcomes concerning self-assessed features of pipette usability and musculoskeletal strain. Ten experienced laboratory employees volunteered for the study. The results showed that light and short pipettes with better tool comfort resulted in reduced muscular activity and perceived musculoskeletal strain when they were compared with a long and heavy pipette. There were no differences in the efficiency between the differ…