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Topic Review
Compound Parabolic Concentrator-Based Hybrid Solar Photovoltaic/Thermal Collectors
The compound parabolic concentrating (CPC) collectors belong to a class of concentrators called non-imaging concentrators. These concentrators allow the design of optical systems that can attain maximum geometric concentrations permitted by laws of physical conservation for a given angular field. As opposed to imaging or focusing concentrators, the concentrators based on non-imaging optics are capable of achieving moderate levels of concentration without tracking the sun.
  • 2.3K
  • 23 May 2022
Topic Review
Hydraulic Free-Piston Engines
The hydraulic free-piston engine (HFPE) is a kind of hybrid-powered machine which combines the reciprocating piston-type internal combustion engine and the plunger pump as a whole. In recent years, the HFPE has been investigated by a number of research groups worldwide due to its potential advantages of high efficiency, energy savings, reduced emissions and multi-fuel operation.
  • 2.3K
  • 14 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Pyrolysis Technology
Pyrolysis technology is a thermo-chemical route for converting biomass to many useful products (biochar, bio-oil, and combustible pyrolysis gases). The composition and relative product yield depend on the pyrolysis technology adopted. 
  • 2.3K
  • 24 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Blockchain Technology
The blockchain is a new technology targeted at storing and managing sensitive data, where pieces ('blocks') of information are entered in a dedicated system by independent users and linked by cryptographic keys (forming the 'chain'). The particularities of a blockchain system are enhanced data security through encryption, anonymization, and immutability; decentralization through peer-to-peer operation, and transparency through open access. The main applications of blockchain are cryptocurrency mining, smart trading and contracts, secure information transfer.
  • 2.3K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Liquid Hydrogen in the Transportation Sector
The European Green Deal aims to transform the EU into a modern, resource-efficient, and competitive economy. The REPowerEU plan launched in May 2022 as part of the Green Deal reveals the willingness of several countries to become energy independent and tackle the climate crisis. Therefore, the decarbonization of different sectors such as maritime shipping is crucial and may be achieved through sustainable energy. Hydrogen is potentially clean and renewable and might be chosen as fuel to power ships and boats. Hydrogen technologies (e.g., fuel cells for propulsion) have already been implemented on board different types of vehicles mainly during demonstration projects.
  • 2.3K
  • 08 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Supercritical Carbon Dioxide(s-CO2) Power Cycle
Supercritical CO2 power cycles have been deeply investigated in recent years. However, their potential in waste heat recovery is still largely unexplored. This paper presents a critical review of engineering background, technical challenges, and current advances of the s-CO2 cycle for waste heat recovery. Firstly, common barriers for the further promotion of waste heat recovery technology are discussed. Afterwards, the technical advantages of the s-CO2 cycle in solving the abovementioned problems are outlined by comparing several state-of-the-art thermodynamic cycles. On this basis, current research results in this field are reviewed for three main applications, namely the fuel cell, internal combustion engine, and gas turbine. For low temperature applications, the transcritical CO2 cycles can compete with other existing technologies, while supercritical CO2 cycles are more attractive for medium- and high temperature sources to replace steam Rankine cycles. Moreover, simple and regenerative configurations are more suitable for transcritical cycles, whereas various complex configurations have advantages for medium- and high temperature heat sources to form cogeneration system. Finally, from the viewpoints of in-depth research and engineering applications, several future development directions are put forward. This review hopes to promote the development of s-CO2 cycles for waste heat recovery.
  • 2.3K
  • 25 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Potential Contamination in Fuel Ethanol Production
Ethanol can be produced from sugary, starchy, and lignocellulosic feedstocks. Each feedstock requires different procedures for its conversion to fermentable sugar. Lignocellulosic biomass requires extra pretreatment compared to sugar and starch feedstocks to disrupt the structure and improve enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency. However, the greatest concern regarding the pretreatment process is inhibitor formation, which might retard enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation. In addition to the inhibitors from pretreatment, chemicals used during the pretreatment and fermentation of byproducts may remain in the final product if they are not removed by ethanol distillation and dehydration. Maintaining the quality of ethanol during storage is another concerning issue. Initial impurities of ethanol being stored and its nature, including hygroscopic, high oxygen and carbon dioxide solubility, influence chemical reactions during the storage period and change ethanol’s characteristics (e.g., water content, ethanol content, acidity, pH, and electrical conductivity).
  • 2.3K
  • 12 May 2022
Topic Review
Classification of Waste Biomass and Biogenic Materials
Waste biomasses such as oil seed crops, lignocellulosic materials (e.g., agricultural and forest residues), microalgae, energy crops, manure, food waste and organic fraction of municipal solid waste have a huge potential to provide energy and value-added products via different conversion technologies.
  • 2.2K
  • 16 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Organic Piezoelectric Biomaterials
The past decade has witnessed significant advances in medically implantable and wearable devices technologies as a promising personal healthcare platform. Organic piezoelectric biomaterials have attracted widespread attention as the functional materials in the biomedical devices due to their advantages of excellent biocompatibility and environmental friendliness. Biomedical devices featuring the biocompatible piezoelectric materials involve energy harvesting devices, sensors, and scaffolds for cell and tissue engineering. This paper offers a comprehensive review of the principles, properties, and applications of organic piezoelectric biomaterials. How to tackle issues relating to the better integration of the organic piezoelectric biomaterials into the biomedical devices is discussed. Further developments in biocompatible piezoelectric materials can spark a new age in the field of biomedical technologies.
  • 2.2K
  • 30 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Applications of Heat Exchanger in Solar Desalination
Solar desalination is a process to convert saline water into potable water by the application of solar energy. The enhancement of the distillate output of the solar desalination is low, so it is not considered as a method to produce potable water. A heat exchanger is an important device used for heat transfer applications.
  • 2.2K
  • 31 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Renewable Energy-Based Charging Infrastructure
With the rise in the demand for electric vehicles, the need for a reliable charging infrastructure increases to accommodate the rapid public adoption of this type of transportation. Simultaneously, local electricity grids are being under pressure and require support from naturally abundant and inexpensive alternative energy sources such as wind and solar. This is why the world has recently witnessed the emergence of renewable energy-based charging stations that have received great acclaim.
  • 2.2K
  • 27 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Cooling Methods for Standard and Floating PV Panels
Energy and water poverty are two main challenges of the modern world. Most developing and underdeveloped countries need more efficient electricity-producing sources to overcome the problem of potable water evaporation. At the same time, the traditional way to produce energy/electricity is also responsible for polluting the environment and damaging the ecosystem. Notably, many techniques have been used around the globe, such as a photovoltaic (PV) cooling (active, passive, and combined) process to reduce the working temperature of the PV panels (up to 60 °C) to improve the system efficiency. For floating photovoltaic (FPV), water cooling is mainly responsible for reducing the panel temperature to enhance the production capacity of the PV panels, while the system efficiency can increase up to around 30%. 
  • 2.2K
  • 12 Dec 2023
Topic Review
Thermochemical Heat Storage Based on CaO/CaCO3 Cycles
Thermochemical heat storage (TCHS) based on CaO/CaCO3 cycles has broad application prospects due to many advantages, such as high heat storage density, high exothermic temperature, low energy loss, low material price, and good coupling with CSP plants.
  • 2.2K
  • 04 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Mapping Renewable Energy among Antarctic Research Stations
The Antarctic is one of the last frontiers on Earth, and habitation and research in the region are challenging and dangerous owing to its harsh environmental conditions. The provision of sufficient infrastructure to researchers engaged in seasonal or year-round research in the Antarctic is essential. Energy is a crucial element of supportive infrastructure, needed to support space heating—required in living areas to prevent sensitive areas from freezing—electricity, water treatment, and fresh-water generation.
  • 2.2K
  • 04 Jun 2024
Topic Review
R1234yf in Organic Rankine Cycle
ORC technology is one of the most promising technologies for the use of residual energy in the generation of electrical energy, offering simple and environmentally friendly alternatives. In this field, the selection of working fluids plays an important role in the operation of the cycle, whether in terms of the energy efficiency or the minimization of environmental impacts. 
  • 2.2K
  • 09 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Battery Thermal Management Systems
In the current context of transition from the powertrains of cars equipped with internal combustion engines to powertrains based on electricity, there is a need to intensify studies and research related to the command-and-control systems of electric vehicles. One of the important systems in the construction of an electric vehicle is the thermal management system of the battery with the role of optimizing the operation of the battery in terms of performance and life.
  • 2.2K
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Grid-integrated renewable energy resources fundamentals
This entry is aimed at a succinct review of practical impacts of grid integration of renewable energy systems on effectiveness of power networks. The renewable energy resources focused on include solar energy, wind energy, biomass energy and geothermal energy, as well as renewable hydrogen/fuel cells, which, although not classified purely as renewable resources, are a famous energy carrier vital for future energy sustainability. Although several world energy outlooks have suggested that the renewable resources available worldwide are sufficient to satisfy global energy needs in multiples of thousands, the different challenges often associated with practical exploitation have made this assertion an illusion to date. Thus, more research efforts are required to synthesize the nature of these challenges as well as viable solution strategies, hence, the need for this review study. Overviews and general state-of-the-art information are provided in this entry, for the aforementioned renewable energy resources.
  • 2.2K
  • 10 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Functions in photovoltaic device system
The defact standard of a solar cell is that electric power generation is made at the same place as  photoharvesting is performed, i.e., the function of photoharvesting/photoreception is spatially degenerated with that of electric power generation (photo-electroconversion). Here, in this review paper, we investigate how liberated we are when the degeneracy is lifted off. A conventional concentrator system is, in a sense, a system in which the primary photoharvesting place is decoupled from the photo-conversion part, but is too bulky because the two parts are connected three-dimensionally by photons. We propose a two-dimensional photoreceptor-conversion (2DPRC) scheme in which the photoreception part is spatially decoupled from, but is two-dimensionally connected to the photo-conversion part by a redirection waveguide (RWG). The whole system is in an edge-illumination/photoinjection configuration and concentrator system is quite naturally built, and the edge-injection lift off the trade-off between photo-absorption and photo-carrier collection in the conventional solar cell, leading to a possible high conversion efficiency.
  • 2.2K
  • 15 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Power-over-Fiber Technologies
Power-over-fiber is a power transmission technology using optical fibers that offers various features not available in conventional power lines, such as copper wires. The basic configuration of power-over-fiber comprises three key components: light sources, optical fibers, and photovoltaic power converters. 
  • 2.2K
  • 18 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Reverse Osmosis
Reverse osmosis is the leading technology for desalination of brackish water and seawater, important for solving the growing problems of fresh water supply.
  • 2.2K
  • 23 Jul 2021
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