Using cheap gravel to store excess energy until its needed.

 

Researchers from Durham University have proposed the use of Joule-Brayton pumped thermal energy storage system for the storage of grid electricity by the use of high-grade thermal energy. Pumped Thermal Energy Storage (PTES) is believed to have a relatively high energy storage density and low installation capital cost and have round-trip efficiencies between 40%–80%.  The most common TES for Brayton PTES is the packed bed storage, which uses cheap materials such as layers of gravel or other ceramic media inside insulated tanks. The integration of the storage media directly into the working fluid stream leads to good heat transfer and allows the entire system to operate at a single pressure. When energy demands are low the excess energy is used to heat up the TES and when energy demands are high the energy can be released and turned back into electricity, effectively making very cheap battery storage without the batteries. Additional latent storage was found to have a significant effect on the key features of the discharge phase. The involved latent storage maintained the temperature of the exit gas at high level for longer time, and led to a cliff-like drop of the temperature at final discharge stage. This allowed the storage to completely discharge and a greater proportion of the stored energy to be returned as useful work. Moreover, the addition of latent storage brings the LCOS below the value predicted for pumped hydro storage. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261922001623 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New photocatalyst made from an aerogel for more efficient hydrogen production

Image
  Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new photocatalyst made from an aerogel that could enable more efficient hydrogen production. One use for aerogels based on nanoparticles is as photocatalysts. These are employed whenever a chemical reaction needs to be enabled or accelerated with the aid of sunlight – one example being the production of hydrogen. The material of choice for photocatalysts is titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ), a semiconductor. But TiO 2  has a major disadvantage: it can absorb only the UV portion of sunlight – just about 5 percent of the spectrum. If photocatalysis is to be efficient and industrially useful, the catalyst must be able to utilise a broader range of wavelengths. Junggou Kwon has been looking for a new way to optimise an aerogel made of TiO 2  nanoparticles. And she had a brilliant idea: if the TiO 2  nanoparticle aerogel is “doped” (to use the technical term) with nitrogen, such that individual oxygen atoms in the material are repla...
Read more

Spider webs near roads capture all types of Micro plastics and could be used for monitoring pollution

Image
Researchers at the University of Oldenburg have been examining spider webs webs for the smallest plastic particles – on inner-city streets with varying levels of traffic. They found mainly the plastic PET, presumably from textiles, as well as particles from the abrasion of car tyres and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The amounts of plastic particles found depended on the location. Spider webs, the team concludes, are a simple and inexpensive means of monitoring air pollution by microplastics in the city and identifying particularly polluted areas.  The samples, collected in a mid-sized German city, were processed with  Fentons  reagent and measured using pyrolysis-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry for specific, polymer related indicator compounds. All samples contained    microplastics (MP) including tyre wear particles (TWP) contamination in air samples.  All the spider webs were contaminated with microplastics. In some cases, the plastic content even accoun...
Read more

​ New artificial leaf can capture 100 times more carbon in normal conditions

Image
  Engineers at the University of Illinois have managed to construct a cost-effective artificial leaf that can capture carbon dioxide 100 times better than any current system works in normal air which is containing very dilute sources of carbon dioxide. This artificial leaf is a modified version of existing systems with a built-in water gradient creating a dry on a wet side across a charged membrane. On the dry side and organic solvent attaches to the carbon dioxide producing a concentrated by carbonate solution. As the bicarbonate solution increases these are pulled across the membrane towards a positively charged electrode in a water-based solution. The liquid solution dissolves the HCO3 back into carbon dioxide so that it can be released and harnessed for fuel uses. The current system is small enough to fit in a backpack and uses less than the electricity used by 1 W LED lightbulb. The system is stackable so that modules can be added or subtracted and could be affordable are used...
Read more