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The black liquor is a byproduct of the kraft pulping process that contains more than half of the exergy content in the total woody biomass fed to the digester, representing a key supply of renewable energy to the pulping process. In this work, the conventional scenario of the black liquor use (i.e., concentration and combustion) is compared with the black liquor upgrading (via) gasification process for ammonia production in terms of economics, exergy efficiency and environmental impact. The combined energy integration and exergy analysis is used to identify the potential improvements that may remain hidden to the energy analysis alone, namely, the determination and mitigation of the process irreversibility. As a result, the exergy efficiencies of the conventional and the integrated cases average 40% and 42%, respectively, whereas the overall emission balance varies from 1.97 to −0.69 tCO2/tPulp, respectively. The negative CO2 emissions indicate the environmental benefits of the proposed integrated process compared to the conventional kraft pulp mill.

The mixing process of hot primary zone gases with secondary air must be rapid and intense for an advanced low NOX gas turbine based on a rich-burn/quick-mix/lean-burn (RQL) combustor. The injection of multiple jets normal into a confined crossflow is a key technology for this combustion concept. Therefore, an experimental investigation of a nonreacting mixing process of jets in a crossflow was conducted. The jets were injected through one stage of opposed rows of circular orifices into a slightly heated crossflow within a rectangular duct with no annular bypass. All geometries were tested with in-line and staggered arrangements of the centerlines of the opposed jets. Using the analogy of heat and mass transfer the temperature distribution was measured, and from that the mixing rate was determined for parametric variation of flow and geometric conditions. In accordance with the application to RQL combustion, emphasis was put on high momentum-flux ratios with high mass flow addition. The mixing process was found to be minimally affected by mainstream Reynolds number and mainstream turbulence, but significantly influenced by the addition of swirl to the mainstream. Correlations based on the experimental data were developed describing best mixing depending as a function of geometric conditions (duct height to hole diameter ratio, relative spacing of adjacent jets) and jet to crossflow momentum-flux ratio.

This paper presents experimental data of three different prototype valves with cone-, ball-, and slide-valve geometries that have been tested using R-744 and two reference media, ARAL 4005 and R-729, under one-phase flow conditions. Three different test rigs were used to carry out the tests using boundary conditions with the objective to achieve more or less similarity regarding the Reynolds number and the Mach number. One aim was to find physical-based flow correlations to describe the flow behavior of the three investigated valve geometries with carbon dioxide (R-744), hydrocarbon-based low-viscosity fluid (ARAL 4005), and air (R-729) as the fluid. The main goal of this research was to find a correlation between the flow coefficients of both (a) R-744 and ARAL 4005 and (b) R-744 and R-729 to enable the transfer of a flow coefficient measured for ARAL 4005 or R-729 into a flow coefficient for R-744.

This paper presents an open standards-based information system supporting the democratization and consumer empowerment through flexibility activation. The paper describes a functional technical reference infrastructure: a secure, standard-based and viable communication backbone for flexibility activation. The infrastructure allows connection, registering, activation and reporting for different types of granular consumer flexibility. The flexibility sources can be directly controllable set points of chargers and stationary batteries, as well as controllable loads. The proposed communication system sees all these flexibility provisions as distributed energy resources in a wider sense, and the architecture allows consumer-level integration of different energy systems. This makes new flexibility sources fully available to the balancing responsible entities in a viable and realistically implementable manner. The proposed reference architecture, as implemented in the FLEXCoop project, relies on established open standards as it is based on the OpenADR and OAuth2 / OpenID standards and the corresponding IEC 62746-10 standard, and it covers interfacing towards other relevant standards. The security and access implications are addressed by the OpenID security layer built on top of the OAuth2 and integrated with the OpenADR standard. To address the data protection and privacy aspects, the architecture is designed on the least knowledge principle.

We investigated the solid state reaction of 30-nm and 100-nm-thick silicide layers on single-crystalline silicon in the temperature range between 650 and 800°C using transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. Sheet resistance measurements were used to observe the effect of the reaction temperature on the layer properties and to perform a systematic study on the thermal stability. At the lower reaction temperature good quality layers were produced with quite small grains. The specific resistivity is as low as 15 μΩ cm and the interface to the silicon substrate is quite flat. These favourable properties lead to a high thermal stability. The processed layers are stable in the temperature range between 850 and 950°C. When the layer thickness is increased to 100 nm, the stability range extends by about 250°C. The deterioration rate of 30-nm and 100-nm-thick silicide layers was deduced from sheet resistance measurements. The activation energy for the electrical degradation of the layer due to layer agglomeration was found to be nearly independent of the thickness.

Abstract This research is conducted to determine the limiting values of the geometric concentration when used with solar thermal system (thermoelectric generator) (TEG) to maintain desired hot and cold side temperatures for power generation. Experiments were conducted to determine the optimum solar concentration (aperture area/target area) using a thermoelectric generator sandwiched between the target plate and passive heat sink. A computer model is developed to solve the energy balance equations and find the optimum values for geometric concentration. It was observed that for the single configuration of heat sink and thermoelectric generator in a system, the trend of temperature difference between the hot and cold sides remain the same at different geometric concentrations. The optimum geometric concentration is determined for heat sinks in study. It is observed that with solar radiation intensity of 800 W/m2 and heat sink fin length of 0.15m the optimum geometric concentration is 13.

Planning the air-terminations for a structure to be protected the use of the rolling-sphere method (electro-geometrical model) is the best way from the physics of lightning point-of-view. Therefore, international standards prefer this method. However, using the rolling-sphere method only results in possible point-of-strikes on a structure without giving information about the probability of strikes at the individual points compared to others.

SummaryThe German government has adopted a law that requires sewage plants to go beyond the recovery of phosphorus from wastewater and to promote recycling. We argue that there is no physical global short‐ or mid‐term phosphorus scarcity. However, we also argue that there are legitimate reasons for policies such as those of Germany, including: precaution as a way to ensure future generations’ long‐term supply security, promotion of technologies for closed‐loop economics in a promising stage of technology development, and decrease in the current supply risk with a new resource pool.

Abstract In wear protection, cobalt-base or nickel-base materials are very often used for coatings in order to increase the functionality and service life of components. These materials such as stellite, the nickel-base alloy Colmonoy 56 or Tribaloy T400 are characterized by a high resistance to abrasion, adhesion as well as excellent corrosion resistance even at higher temperatures. Given the criticality of cobalt and partly also nickel, it is necessary to look for more sustainable alternatives to be used in wear protection. One possibility is to further develop iron-base materials so that they can be used in wear protection to prevent both abrasion and adhesion. In this context, sufficient corrosion resistance is desirable. This paper will elaborate on the development of a novel intermetallic iron-base hard alloy.