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Abstract Sugarcane is a major crop cultivated globally and the residue left over after the crop harvest and extraction of juice is a good biomass source that can be used for the production of several useful chemicals. The sugarcane bagasse is an excellent substrate for the production of various biochemicals and enzymes through fermentation. Now major interest is focused on the utilization of these residue for biofuel production. The sugarcane crop residue is rich in cellulose and hemicellulose, hence it can be used for the production of bioethanol and other liquid transportation fuels. The present review gives a detailed account of the availability of sugarcane residue and various commercially important products that can be produced from this residue. It also provides recent developments in R&D on the bioconversion of sugarcane crop residue for value added products.

Abstract A vapour absorption refrigeration system (VARS) in which a transfer tank replaces the conventional solution pump is analysed. Six fluid pairs with R22 as the refrigerant and different absorbents: DMA; DMF; DMETEG; DMETrEG; DMEDEG; and NMP are considered. Variations in COP, circulation ratio, percent mass of generated vapour utilised for transfer-tank operation, and minimum generator temperature are compared over a wide range of operating conditions. In general, R22-DMA, R22-DMF, and R22-DMETrEG are preferable for a transfer-tank operated VARS. At high generator temperatures or low condenser temperatures, R22-DMA gives the best overall performance. When the temperatures of the evaporator, absorber, and condenser are high, one may prefer R22-DMF as the working fluid.

Abstract For the past few decades, the drastic increase in the installed capacity of wind farms (WFs) has necessitated a computationally efficient dynamic equivalent model of a WF, which can be used for accurate power network simulations. Various doubly-fed induction generators (DFIGs) with sophisticated power control, rotor, and grid side converter control based models for wind turbine (WT) exist in the literature. However, these models are computationally burdensome and restrict their application for modeling large WFs. Thus, an equivalent DFIG based model of a WF, with the rotor circuit modeled as a constant current source, is proposed in this paper. The proposed model is simple and computationally efficient as no rotor measurements are required, and voltage and current measurements at the point of common coupling (PCC) of the WF are used in extended Kalman filter (EKF) to evaluate the dynamic parameters of the equivalent DFIG. A Y b u s based reduction is also proposed for the equivalent collector system’s impedance. Simulation results on a test WF in MATLAB Simulink and DIgSILENT prove the proposed model’s efficacy over the existing equivalent models for different operating conditions like wake effect and contingencies in the interconnected power system network.

Abstract The high viscosity of fish oil leads to problem in pumping and spray characteristics. The inefficient mixing of fish oil with air leads to incomplete combustion. The best way to use fish oil as fuel in compression ignition (CI) engines is to convert it into biodiesel. It can be used in CI engines with very little or no engine modifications. This is because it has properties similar to mineral diesel. Combustion tests for methyl ester of fish oil and its blends with diesel fuel were performed in a kirloskar H394 DI diesel engine, to evaluate fish biodiesel as an alternative fuel for diesel engine, at constant speed of 1500 rpm under variable load conditions. The tests showed no major deviations in diesel engine's combustion as well as no significant changes in the engine performance and reduction of main noxious emissions with the exception on NOx. Overall fish biodiesel showed good combustion properties and environmental benefits.

Abstract An indirect forced convection and desiccant integrated solar dryer is designed and fabricated to investigate its performance under the hot and humid climatic conditions of Chennai, India. The system consists of a flat plate solar air collector, drying chamber and a desiccant unit. The desiccant unit is designed to hold 75 kg of CaCl2-based solid desiccant consisting of 60% bentonite, 10% calcium chloride, 20% vermiculite and 10% cement. Drying experiments have been performed for green peas at different air flow rate. The equilibrium moisture content Me is reached in 14 h at an air flow rate of 0.03 kg/m2 s. The system pickup efficiency, specific moisture extraction rate, dimensionless mass loss, mass shrinkage ratio and drying rate are discussed in this paper.

Abstract Sensible heat storage depends on the material, geometry, and storage fluid medium. The formation of multi-tubular cavities in a concrete based storage system has better performance than the solid storage system. Inserts are being used to enhance the heat transfer rates in a confined flow passage. The present study aims to examine the performance of a sensible heat storage system made of concrete with wire coil inserts to store 8 MJ thermal energy from heated air. The wire coil insert is fitted inside multiple tubular cavities of 0.019 m diameter and pitch to diameter ratio of the insert is varied from 0.5 to 1. The maximum energy efficiency and capacity factor correspond to the system of multi-tubular cavities with wire coil insert having a pitch to diameter ratio of 0.5. The proposed system can be easily integrated with the solar air heater in the temperature range of 45–75 °C. The results show that the Energy efficiency of a sensible heat storage system with wire coil insert is found to be 85.9% at the pitch ratio of 0.5 after 2 h whereas the system with smooth cavities yields an efficiency of 76.9% after the same duration.

Abstract Used palm oil collected from different restaurants in Tirunelveli region of south India was converted into methyl esters (biodiesel) by transesterification. Biodiesel produced from used palm oil was blended with diesel by different volume proportions (25%, 50% and 75%). Biodiesel and its blends were tested in a DI diesel engine at constant speed by varying loads (between 20% and 100%) to analyze its performance, emission and combustion profile. The results obtained were compared with diesel fuel. B25 and B50 showed performances similar to diesel fuel. Smoke density of B100 and B75 were lower than diesel by 19% and 10% at full load. At full load measured CO emission for B100 and B75 were 52.9% and 35.2% lower than diesel HC emission for B100 and B75 were 38.09% and 19.05% lower than diesel. NOX emission was higher for all biodiesel blends. B75 showed lower amount of emissions throughout the test. Ignition delay for B100, B75, B50 and B25 were 2.1°, 1.9°, 1.7° and 1° lower than diesel. Combustion profile was smoother and no knocking was experienced while operating with biodiesel blends. B50 produced peak cylinder pressure.

Access to a reliable source of electricity is a basic need for any community as it can improve the living standards characterized via the improvement of healthcare, education, and the local economy at large. There are two key factors to consider when assessing the appropriateness of a micro-grid system, the cost-effectiveness of the system and the quality of service. The tradeoff between cost and reliability of the system is a major compromise in designing hybrid systems. In this way, optimization of a Hybrid Micro-Grid System (HMGS) is investigated. A hybrid wind/PV system with battery storage and diesel generator is used for this purpose. The power management algorithm is applied to the load, and the Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) method is used to find the best configuration of the system and for sizing the components. A set of recent hourly wind speed data from three meteorological stations in Iran, namely: Nahavand, Rafsanjan, and Khash, are selected and tested for the optimization of HMGS. Despite design complexity of the aforementioned systems, the results show that the MOPSO optimization model produces appropriate sizing of the components for each location. It is also suggested that the use of HMGS can be considered as a good alternative to promote electrification projects and enhance energy access within remote Iranian areas or other developing countries enjoying the same or similar climatic conditions.

In the context of a Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) connected to the utility grid under unbalanced voltage conditions, the controller design needs to ensure additional challenges such as restricting the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) in grid current, minimizing the pulsations in generated power, torque, dc link voltage etc. apart from facilitating the generator power control. Thus the schemes for generating reference currents for rotor converters need to incorporate a measure of power pulsations to what is required for steady state power flow control. This paper proposes a versatile scheme for computing the power pulsations in a DFIG connected to grid under unbalance voltage conditions. The active and reactive power oscillations are computed in a simple and straight forward manner using the measured stator voltage and currents in the positive d-q frame without using flux estimation. The scheme is free from flux integration or differentiation, rotor position computation and independent of machine parameters. Further, the worst case error in computation is bound within 3% considering 30% voltage dip, 7% of harmonics, ±10°phase jump or ±10% dc offset in the grid voltage. The effectiveness of the scheme is validated through PSCAD/EMTDC simulations and experimental results for a 2.3 kW DFIG test setup.