• Energy Research
• Closed Access close
• Embargo close
• CN close
• US close
• DE close
• NL close

Flue gas desulfurization (FGD) and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technologies have been widely used to control the emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOX) from coal-fired power plants (CFPPs). Field measurements of emission characteristics of four conventional CFPPs indicated a significant increase in particulate ionic species, increasing PM2.5 emission with FGD and SCR installations. The mean concentrations of PM2.5 from all CFPPs tested were 3.79 ± 1.37 mg/m3 and 5.02 ± 1.73 mg/m3 at the FGD inlet and outlet, respectively, and the corresponding contributions of ionic species were 19.1 ± 7.7% and 38.2 ± 7.8%, respectively. The FGD was found to enhance the conversion of NH3 slip from the SCR to NH4+ in the PM2.5, together with the conversion of SO2 to SO42-, and increased the primary NH4+ and SO42- aerosol emissions by approximately 18.9 and 4.2 times, respectively. This adverse effect should be considered when updating the emission inventory of CFPPs and should draw the attention of policy-makers for future air pollution control.

Abstract Adding high thermal conductive fillers to base materials has been recognized as an efficient way to increase the thermal conductivity of composites materials. The heat conductive path is formed by filler contacts, this is a key point. In this paper, the effects of filler contacts are investigated based on generalized model and isolated model. The results indicate that the thermal conductivity is always linearly increased with the sphere filler contents. However, for cube filler, when the volume content exceeds 10%, the growth of thermal conductivity is accelerated along with filler contents. The 10% filler content is the inflection point and percolation threshold for cube filler. It is much lower than previously reported. The effect of filler contacts is very small for sphere fillers. Meanwhile, the deviation of thermal conductivity between two-dimensional and three-dimensional model is also very small for sphere filler. The cube fillers have substantial effects on the consequently thermal conductivity than sphere fillers. A series of new three-dimensional generalized model are proposed by numerical method. The filler contacts are considered in this model, the deviation with the experiment tested is in an acceptable range at wide filler contents.

Abstract In this paper, a novel ejector-based multi-evaporator refrigeration system using R134a is proposed to meet different working modes of refrigerated trucks running in tropical regions. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation is implemented to research the performance of ejectors utilized in both air conditioning - refrigerating mode and air conditioning - freezing mode. Consequently, crucial ejector geometrical parameters such as area ratio (AR), nozzle exit position (NXP), lengths of primary nozzle and diffuser are optimized for each mode. Moreover, a novel approach by taking the deviation of the entrainment ratio or secondary mass flow rate over the deviation of the geometrical parameter into account to evaluate the ejector performance sensitivity to each geometrical parameter is first time presented to the best of the authors’ knowledge. The results show that: 1) Area ratio, NXP, lengths of primary nozzle and diffuser of the ejector in the air conditioning - freezing mode are almost twice as those in the air conditioning - refrigerating mode; 2) The performance of both ejectors is primarily influenced by area ratio and NXP; 3) The proposed sensitivity indicator can better evaluate the sensitivity of the ejector performance to geometrical parameters.

A study was carried out to determine if electromagnetic fields of high voltage transmission lines can interfere with electromagnetically guided cornering systems associated with some center pivot irrigation units. Using electromagnetic susceptibility tests, it was found that 60 hertz magnetic fields of more than approximately 500 mG (milligauss) are required to cause interference with the operation of one system. This level is significantly higher than those found near most high voltage transmission lines. It was also found that the magnetic fields at harmonic frequencies and wideband fields due to corona on the transmission line studied were insufficient to cause interference with cornering guidance systems. Observations of center pivot cornering systems operating properly near 345 kV transmission lines in Nebraska, USA, confirmed these results.

Abstract The kinetics of CO 2 absorption in unloaded aqueous ammonia solution were measured using a string of discs contactor with the aqueous ammonia concentrations ranging 0.9–5.4 kmol/m 3 and temperatures ranging 298.3–321.9 K. The reaction rates strongly increase with the concentration and less strongly with temperature. Both the termolecular and zwitterion models were applied in this study as amine solutions. The parameters for both of the models were interpreted. The kinetic rate constants for CO 2 absorption in aqueous ammonia were compared with those for other amines and were found to be around 1/10 that for monoethanolamine. The fitting results for the termolecular mechanism seem more robust than those for the zwitterion mechanism from a statistical perspective.

Direct Load Control (DLC) is an effective instrument for achieving a guaranteed load curtailment. Unfortunately, if a customer considers that personal discomfort outweighs money savings after DLC shutting down of home appliances, DLC solution can be rejected. This paper proposes the way to remediate customer comfort concerns by pre-storing additional energy in electric loads before their disconnection from the grid. We take electric tank water heaters as an illustrative example of residential loads with storage. To illuminate our approach we first show how to balance electric consumption for pre-storing with user thermal discomfort for a single water heater. Then, we illustrate how the approach can be scaled-up to a multiple-boiler scenario, when ten remotely controlled boilers act next to fifty non-controlled boilers. The simulations for the latter case show that the expected user thermal discomfort can be significantly reduced at the cost of a reasonable increase of electricity demand preceding DLC event.

A cost efficient synergistic strategy combining mild alkaline pretreatment (0.5-5% NaOH at 70 °C for 60 min) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) blocking of lignin was evaluated for effective conversion of poplar. The highest glucose yield of 69.2% was obtained for 5% alkaline pretreated sample, which was 4.4 times that of untreated sample. The enhanced enzymatic hydrolysis was attributed to significant hemicelluloses removal with limited delignification. Delignification mainly occurred in secondary wall, leading to more open cell wall structure, thus facilitating better transport of enzyme. Hemicelluloses removal helped split adjacent microfibrils, thus increased the specific sites for cellulase binding. After BSA addition in enzymatic hydrolysis, cellulose conversion further improved to 78.4% with 33% reduction of cellulase dosage due to decreased non-specific adsorption of cellulase on residual lignin. The utilization of synergistic alkaline pretreatment - BSA strategy may improve the overall economics of biomass conversion and successful commercial implementation of biorefineries.

With the rapid development of the wearable devices and flexible supercapacitors (FSCs), urgent demand for electrodes with high specific capacitance and excellent flexibility have been put forward. Herein, a self-standing conducting polymer hydrogel electrode has been successfully synthesized by in situ polymerization of aniline (ANI) in aqueous solution of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), phytic acid (PA) and sodium chloride (NaCl). The prepared PANI/PVA/NaCl (PPN) hydrogel electrode shows high specific capacitance (1544 mF cm−2 at current density of 1 mA cm−2), good flexibility (elongation at fracture of 110%), satisfactory electrochemical stability (92% capacitance retention after 500 repeated bending cycles) and excellent cycling stability (78.2% capacitance retention after 10000 cycles) due to the uniform 3D interconnected structure driven by NaCl pseudo template. In order to further explore the potential application prospects of the synthesized hydrogel in flexible devices, a series of all-hydrogel-state FSCs are assembled based on the prepared PPN hydrogel electrodes and typical PVA/H2SO4 electrolyte. The assembled FSCs exhibit high energy density of 51.1 μWh cm−2 at power density of 250 μW cm−2 and long-life stability of 81.10% capacitance retention after 10000 charge/discharge cycles. This work provides a new synthesis strategy for the high performance energy storage electrodes and devices.

Abstract Four types of via-filling models are developed in this paper, considering distinct chemical behaviour of additives used in the TSV electroplating. The surface convection, surface diffusion and the effect of the curvature are considered in the equation of the coverage of additives, which is solved by a weak form of the PDEs. The simulation results of the different models are compared. Sensitivity analyses of the important parameters in the four models are conducted. Thus, the influences of parameters on the via-filling process are investigated. Conclusions are drawn based on the analysis of the developed numerical models.