• Energy Research

The dairy industry uses a number of energy intensive thermal processes like cooling, heating and cleaning that require thermal and electrical energy. Those processes use temperatures between 4 ◦C and 200 ◦C that could be potentially powered using solar thermal energy but one of the main challenges is the complexity of selection and integration of the components used for the solar system such as solar collectors, solar heating and cooling equipment. The heating processes with the temperature requirements between 300 ◦C and 400 ◦C are mainly powered using solar parabolic trough collectors and linear Fresnel reflectors while cooling processes with solar absorption chillers. The excesses of energy of above 200 ◦C could be stored in a thermal energy storage system. This study critically evaluates the thermal demands of the dairy processes, reviews their existing solar thermal applications and recommends a concept design for solar thermal energy integration based on the available data. The concept design includes connection of the solar collectors and thermal energy storage to the thermal energy supply line through the absorption chiller and steam drum. The benefits comprise flexibility of the heat transfer fluid selection, independency of solar energy production to conventional production and no further modification of the conventional production system or additional capacity to support the future upgrades are required.

The aim of this study was to investigate the current STE systems used in the dairy industry and recommend more efficient STE configurations to improve environmental and economic performances of the dairy processes.

This report covers the phase 1 (M18 report) of the System Boundaries and Functional Unit of the social life cycle assessment (S-LCA). The goal and scope of the S-LCA is described in detail so that the next phases of the S-LCA can be conducted accordingly.

This report provides information on energy demand profiles and commercial aspects relevant to the end-users involved in the ASTEP project.

The dairy industry is one of the growing sectors in the food industry with significant thermal energy demand for their processes and temperature requirement of maximum 200 ℃. The use of solar energy for those process will reduce the fossil fuel dependency, greenhouse gas emission, environmental pollution and help to meet emission targets. Therefore, this study investigates the thermal requirements of a dairy company and provides a schematic of two integration concepts between the solar thermal energy system and their processes which are through the common energy supply line and inlets of individual processes. The study involves a case study that uses natural gas-powered boilers, and electrical powered chiller, ice banks and refrigerators to meet heating and cooling energy demand for the processes such as pasteurisation, fermentation and cold milk tanks. The overall energy consumption of the dairy processes is 1315 kWh at the full capacity operation, of which 1195 kWh can be theoretically replaced by the solar thermal energy. The temperature requirements of the processes are between 0 ℃ and 4 ℃ for cooling, and 170 ℃ for the heating. These thermal requirements can be met by using either parabolic trough or linear Fresnel solar thermal collectors along with thermal energy storage. The solar thermal energy integration concepts developed at supply level and process level use steam drum and absorption chiller to transfer the solar energy to the processes. The supply level integration has more advantages due to its easier control over the conventional and solar energy systems.

Neat biodiesels are not preferred for use in the compression ignition (CI) engines due to their high viscosities and related operational difficulties. This study investigated the fuel properties and combustion characteristics when 2-butoxyethanol additive was mixed separately with waste cooking oil biodiesel (W100) and rapeseed oil biodiesel (R100). Compared to neat biodiesels, the viscosities (at 40 ⁰C) of the W100 and R100 were reduced by 12.5% and 9.8% respectively, when they were blended separately with 15% 2-butoxyethanol. Four different samples such as W100, mixture of 85% W100 and 15% 2-Butoxyethanol (W85), R100, mixture of 85 % R100 and 15% 2-Butoxyethanol (R85) were tested in a multi-cylinder CI engine. The thermal efficiency of the W85 fuel was higher than fossil diesel by approximately 3.7%. Total combustion duration of the biodiesel-additive blends were shorter than neat biodiesels and fossil diesel. Biodiesel-additive blends provided approximately 6% higher in-cylinder peak pressures. At full load, W85 fuel gave up to 5.4% reduced NOx emissions than neat biodiesel. The CO, HC and smoke emissions were decreased by up to 36%, 100% and 79% respectively. The study concluded that 2-butoxyethanol could effectively be used as biodiesel additive to improve fuel property; and to achieve better combustion and reduced pollution.

This report aims to provide concept designs to integrate the SunDial/TES system with the MANDREKAS and ArcelorMittal end-users. These concept designs are important to understand how the ASTEP system will be integrated with the end-users including the tailored designs for the specific needs of each end-user. The end-user specific ASTEP system is introduced and existing heating/cooling systems are explained in schematic diagrams. A small number of integration options are presented in detailed schematics. Possible integration components such as steam generator for MANDREKAS and pipe heater for ArcelorMittal are investigated at the component level. In addition, key fluid properties at the critical locations such as inlet and outlet of the components are summarised.

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August, pp. 1\u201348, 2004."]} Hardly any neat biodiesel satisfies the European EN14214 standard for compression ignition engine application. To satisfy the EN14214 standard, various additives are doped into biodiesel; however, biodiesel additives might cause other problems such as increase in the particular emission and increased specific fuel consumption. In addition, the additives could be expensive. Considering the increasing level of greenhouse gas GHG emissions and fossil fuel depletion, it is forecasted that the use of biodiesel will be higher in the near future. Hence, the negative aspects of the biodiesel additives will likely to gain much more importance and need to be replaced with better solutions. This study aims to satisfy the European standard EN14214 by blending the biodiesels derived from sustainable feedstocks. Waste Cooking Oil (WCO) and Animal Fat Oil (AFO) are two sustainable feedstocks in the EU (including the UK) for producing biodiesels. In the first stage of the study, these oils were transesterified separately and neat biodiesels (W100 & A100) were produced. Secondly, the biodiesels were blended together in various ratios: 80% WCO biodiesel and 20% AFO biodiesel (W80A20), 60% WCO biodiesel and 40% AFO biodiesel (W60A40), 50% WCO biodiesel and 50% AFO biodiesel (W50A50), 30% WCO biodiesel and 70% AFO biodiesel (W30A70), 10% WCO biodiesel and 90% AFO biodiesel (W10A90). The prepared samples were analysed using Thermo Scientific Trace 1300 Gas Chromatograph and ISQ LT Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS). The GS-MS analysis gave Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) breakdowns of the fuel samples. It was found that total saturation degree of the samples was linearly increasing (from 15% for W100 to 54% for A100) as the percentage of the AFO biodiesel was increased. Furthermore, it was found that WCO biodiesel was mainly (82%) composed of polyunsaturated FAMEs. Cetane numbers, iodine numbers, calorific values, lower heating values and the densities (at 15 oC) of the samples were estimated by using the mass percentages data of the FAMEs. Besides, kinematic viscosities (at 40 °C and 20 °C), densities (at 15 °C), heating values and flash point temperatures of the biomixture samples were measured in the lab. It was found that estimated and measured characterisation results were comparable. The current study concluded that biomixture fuel samples W60A40 and W50A50 were perfectly satisfying the European EN 14214 norms without any need of additives. Investigation on engine performance, exhaust emission and combustion characteristics will be conducted to assess the full feasibility of the proposed biomixture fuels.