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Dolomite-based binders are characterised by interesting technical and environmental features. For their synthesis, sources of both CaO and MgO are required. The idea developed in this work is to couple the synthesis of dolomite-based binders, starting from a natural dolomite, through the concept of concentrated solar energy (needed to drive the endothermal dolomite calcination process) in fluidised bed reactors. To this end, a fluidised bed system, where the concentrated solar radiation is mimicked by the use of Xe-lamps (short-arc), has been set up and operated. Natural dolomite (sieved in the 420-590 ?m size range) was calcined at a nominal temperature of 850 °C, and bed temperature profiles during solar-driven calcination were investigated. Then, four binders were prepared by mixing slaked dolomite (obtained from the hydration of solar calcined dolomite) with either blast furnace slag or coal fly ash as supplementary cementitious materials. The binders were hydrated for curing times ranging from 7 to 56 days. X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction and combined differential thermal and thermogravimetric analyses were employed as characterisation techniques both to analyse the chemical composition of starting materials and to investigate the evolution of the hydration in the four systems.

In this paper a novel generalised modelling framework for multi-energy systems containing storage elements is combined with a multi-objective model predictive control. The control objective is to both minimise the economic cost of importing energy into the system as well as providing the service of smoothing the profile of the electrical energy imported thus levelling the load and reducing peak demand. The capabilities of the approach are demonstrated by its application to a representative case study based on two buildings at the University of Manchester. Results show that model predictive control is capable of simultaneously addressing minimisation of economic cost as well as smoothing the electrical energy import.

In the present work the influence of accelerated mineral carbonation on the leaching behaviour of basic oxygen furnace steel slag was investigated. The environmental behaviour of the material as evaluated through the release of major elements and toxic metals under varying pH conditions was the main focus of the study. Geochemical modelling of the eluates was used to derive a theoretical description of the underlying leaching phenomena for the carbonated material as compared to the original slag. Among the investigated elements, Ca and Si were most appreciably affected by carbonation. A very clear effect of carbonation on leaching was observed for silicate phases, and lower-Ca/Si-ratio minerals were found to control leaching in carbonated slag eluates as compared to the corresponding untreated slag sample as a result of Ca depletion from the residual slag particles. Clear evidence was also gained of solubility control for Ca, Mg and Mn by a number of carbonate minerals, indicating a significant involvement of the original slag constituents in the carbonation process. The release of toxic metals (Zn, V, Cr, Mo) was found to be variously affected by carbonation, owing to different mechanisms including pH changes, dissolution/precipitation of carbonates as well as sorption onto reactive mineral surfaces. The leaching test results were used to derive further considerations on the expected metal release levels on the basis of specific assumptions on the relevant pH domains for the untreated and carbonated slag.

The safeguard of power equipments is assuming a major role in the deregulated electricity market, where a malfunctioning power system could be responsible for serious damages to a large number of system operators having access to the shared energy resource. In this context thermal monitoring of power cables represents a key issue in evaluating the risks associated with a given load management policy especially during emergency conditions. In particular this demands for reliable assessment models that should be able to predict the transient thermal behaviour when the load exceeds the nameplate value. In this connection the application of both simplified and detailed power cable thermal models is often complicated by the presence of uncertainties affecting the tolerances of the input data. The effect of these uncertainties could influence the final solution to a considerable extent. A comprehensive tolerance analysis is therefore required in order to incorporate the effect of data uncertainties into the thermal modelling process. To address this problem, in the paper the employment of interval mathematic is proposed. Several numerical results are presented and discussed in order to assess the effectiveness of the proposed methodology which offer a rough qualitative insight of the solution in a very short time, comparable to the time required for a deterministic numerical simulation.

Nowadays, many islands worldwide are lack of electrical energy. Thus, it is convenient to exploit available renewable energy sources, among which sea waves near the islands. This paper focuses on the power conversion system coupled with an offshore wave energy device, such as an improved linear generator, to be used for sea wave energy harvesting. Particularly, the design of the linear generator has been proposed to improve the energy efficiency of the entire system. The proposed power conversion system is composed by two Boost Rectifier (BR) directly coupled to the linear generator, and one Voltage Source Inverter (VSI), which it is used as front-end between the DC-bus and the grid. The proposed converters are realized using the Silicon Carbide (SiC) devices in order to improve the efficiency. Furthermore, the control strategy to regulate the generator side and grid side currents has been implemented. The proposed system has been validated using the Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) test bench and 20 kW SiC power converters.

In recent years, the portable technology is receiving a great interest and significant improvement due to the progresses in electronic technology development and energy storage solutions. The decrease in power requirements for working energy systems, due to the increased efficiency and to the reduction in components size, opens the access to new solutions for power supplying. In particular, alternative backup systems for battery charging or replacement could be designed taking advantage of unconventional technologies. It is the case of small photovoltaic portable panels or fuel cells technology: in these solutions different sources are used to produce limited electrical powers required to keep devices on. In this paper, a thermoelectric solution for the power generation has been considered: the generator has been designed and assembled starting from a catalytic combustor. Catalytic combustion allows safe control of the processes, and the choice of a hydrocarbon fuel ensures the power availability and a fast recharge. The size of the system is set to fit a volume close to the one of AA batteries. The electrical power output obtained is close to 1 W with a cold side temperature below 40 °C. The limited values of these physical parameters allow obtaining a portable and safe device. The generator has been fully characterized in different ranges of fuel flow rates and the performances have been thoroughly analysed for processes optimization and efficiency improvement.

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