Power conversion system for high altitude wind power generation with medium voltage AC transmission

High Altitude Wind Power (HAWP) generating system provides clean energy at low cost and high capacity factor due to reduced size of the turbine and high speed streamlined wind at high altitude. An air-borne wind turbine (AWT) at high altitude extracts kinetic energy from wind using buoyancy provided by the blimp/aerostat. The generated electrical power is then transmitted to the ground based station (without any power conditioning) using the transmission lines (tether). The power conversion system (PCS) for harnessing HAWP is proposed in this paper. The proposed PCS consists of a three-level neutral point clamped (NPC) rectifier, a three-level NPC DC–DC converter followed by a two-level inverter. Modelling, design and control of the PCS are presented and discussed. The PCS provides generation side maximum power-point tracking (MPPT) using sensorless optimal torque control technique. The DC–DC converter provides electrical isolation as well as voltage step-down functions. A modified proportional resonant (PR) control which can selectively eliminate lower order current harmonics of the grid-connected inverter is also presented. The proposed control scheme of the PCS is evaluated through simulation studies using software programs like PSIM and MATLAB. A scaled-down 1 kW laboratory prototype of the complete PCS is designed, built and tested. The experimental test results obtained validate the proposed control scheme for efficient power generation from high altitude wind and interface to the grid/load.     

An innovative technology of directional propagation of hydraulic fracture guided by radial holes in fossil hydrogen energy development

Conventional hydraulic fracturing fails to develop low permeability reservoirs of fossil hydrogen energy that are not located in the direction of maximum principal in-situ stress. A new technology of fracture propagation guided by radial holes is proposed, which can realize directional propagation of hydraulic fracture along radial holes in fossil hydrogen energy development. In order to verify this new technology, a model of radial holes combined with hydraulic fracturing is established by the ABAQUS extended finite element method. Simulation results show that radial holes play a guiding role in fractures propagation. The influence extent of seven factors on the directional propagation of hydraulic fracture is listed as follows (from strong to weak): azimuth of radial holes > horizontal in-situ stress difference of fossil hydrogen reservoir > injection rate of fracturing fluid > Young's modulus of rock > permeability of fossil hydrogen reservoir > Poisson ratio of rock > viscosity of fracturing fluid. True tri-axial experiment is carried out to verify the accuracy of numerical simulation, and the result is consistent with numerical model, which indicates that numerical simulation is reliable.     

Pressure transient analysis for asymmetrically fractured wells in dual-permeability organic compound reservoir of hydrogen and carbon

In this paper, a comprehensive semi-analytical model was presented to investigate pressure transient behavior for asymmetrically fractured wells in organic compound reservoir of hydrogen and carbon with dual-permeability behavior. Stehfest inversion algorithm can be used to transform it back into time domain to obtain pressure solution. The presented solution was validated well with numerical solutions. Flow characteristics for asymmetrically fractured wells in dual-permeability organic compound reservoir of hydrogen and carbon were divided into five regime. The effects of some important parameters on dimensionless pressure and its derivative curves were analyzed in details, including inter-porosity flow coefficient from matrix to natural fractures λ, storage coefficient ω, fracture asymmetry factor θ and permeability ratio κ. The presented model can be used to predict production performance and do well test analysis in the development of dual-permeability organic compound reservoir of hydrogen and carbon.     

Combining wind farms with concentrating solar plants to provide stable renewable power

We evaluate the extent to which a combination of wind power and concentrating solar power (CSP) may lead to stable and even baseload power by taking advantage of: 1) spatiotemporal balancing of solar and wind energy resources and 2) storage capabilities of CSP plants. A case study is conducted for the region of Andalusia in Spain. To this end, spatiotemporal variability of modeled CSP and wind capacity factors in a 3-km spatial resolution grid were analyzed based on principal component analysis (PCA) and canonical correlation analysis (CCA). Results reveal that renewable baseload power can be obtained in the study region by locating wind farms and CSP plants using balancing patterns derived from CCA and PCA. In addition, the power fluctuation reduction attained from these patterns was substantially higher than those obtained by interconnecting randomly-located wind farms and CSP plants across the study region. Results were particularly meaningful for the winter season. Upon considering storage capability of the CSP plants, results proved better. The main difference was a higher firm capacity value associated with spring and summer seasons. For the other seasons, the contribution of thermal storage capabilities of the CSP plants to stable power proved less relevant.     

Reactivity investigation on biomass chemical looping conversion for syngas production

Chemical looping gasification (CLG) is regarded as an innovative and promising technology for producing syngas. In this work, CLG of straw was conducted in a fixed bed reactor with Fe₂O₃ as the oxygen carrier, whose results led to conclusions that Fe₂O₃, the oxygen carrier, proved advantageous to the secondary gasification reaction and the formation of CO and CO₂. It was also found that CO was further oxidized to CO₂ at high Fe₂O₃/C molar ratio, which resulted in a decreased gasification efficiency and low heat value of syngas. Therefore, a conclusion was drawn that the most optimized Fe₂O₃/C molar ratio was 0.2. In addition, the alkali metals in the biomass evaporated as chlorine salts into gas phase and retained as alkali metal oxide at high temperature, resulting in coking, slagging and heating surface corrosion. In the mean time, the oxygen carrier mainly converted to Fe and sintering phenomenon was serious at high temperature despite the fact that high temperature promoted gas yield, carbon conversion efficiency and gasification efficiency. Therefore, the most optimized temperature was set to 800 °C in order to maximize gas yield and gasification efficiency.     

Cu-MOF assisted synthesis of CuS/CdS(H)/CdS(C): Enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production under visible light

CuS/CdS(H)/CdS(C) photocatalysts were synthesized via the hydrothermal method by employing thiourea, Cd(CH₃COO)₂·3H₂O and copper 1,4-benzenedicarboxylate MOF (CuBDC). The photocatalysts were characterized by XRD, XPS, BET, TEM and UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectra. Interestingly, hexagonal CdS (CdS(H)) and cubic CdS (CdS(C)) were formed with phase junctions in one step when CuBDC was introduced in the synthesis process, in addition, CuS nanoparticles were deposited on CdS. However, only hexagonal CdS was obtained without CuBDC. It demonstrated that CuBDC was not only the precursor of CuS but also the structural modifier for CdS. With the reduction of re-combination of photo-induced electrons and holes caused by phase junctions and the enhancement of visible-light absorptions due to the loading of CuS, all CuS/CdS(H)/CdS(C) photocatalysts had higher photocurrent densities under visible-light irradiation, and consequently the higher rates of H₂ production than pure CdS(H). Typically, the catalyst with 2.89 wt% of Cu showed a highest rate of H₂ evolution at 2042 μmol/g/h.     

Insights into the development of crystallinity in liquid urea-formaldehyde resins

Differently from most thermoset materials, urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins display the appearance of crystalline domains. In the effort of understanding the mechanism of formation of such crystals, wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), infrared spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were applied. Liquid UF resins with two different F/U mole ratios (i.e. 1.6 and 1.0) were investigated as a function of hardener level and curing times at room temperature. The WAXD results showed that the liquid UF resin with a low F/U mole ratio had a greater crystallinity than the one with a high F/U mole ratio. An advance in crystal formation in the low F/U mole UF resins was visible, especially in the first phases of curing. However, there were no significant differences in the degree of crystallinity as a function of hardener level. IR spectroscopy highlighted the important role of methylolated species in the formation of crystals. TEM results also confirmed the presence of crystals in all the considered liquid UF resins. The concentration of the hardener and the curing time were critical in shaping morphology and particle dispersion. As a function of the curing conditions, the globular structures present in the samples can aggregate into different morphologies, which can be fibrillar and also lamellar. The obtained results stress the importance of controlling the subtle interplay between crosslinking and formulation for the obtainment and control of the size, quantity and morphology of crystals in UF resins, and therefore for an effective tuning of their properties.     

High selectivity of erythritol production from glycerol by Yarrowia lipolytica

The effect of different vitamins and nitrogen sources on the yield, productivity and selectivity of erythritol production from glycerol in batch and fed-batch cultures by Yarrowia lipolytica Wratislavia K1 strain was examined in the study.Thiamine was a vitamin necessary for efficient erythritol production and the yeast extract (YE) turned out to be its best source. The YE was additionally a very good source of nitrogen in this process. Erythritol production may be efficient in the media containing only yeast extract and crude glycerol. The application of a high substrate concentration (325 kg m⁻³) in the fed-batch system with pulsed addition of glycerol resulted in erythritol production of 201.2 kg m⁻³ after 168 h of cultivation. The mass fraction of by-products, such as other polyols and organic acids, did not exceed 10%. The study showed that by-products formation could be significantly reduced by the addition of a nitrogen source after glycerol depletion from the media. Wratislavia K1 strain does not utilize erythritol in the presence of other carbon sources and this feature was used in order to increase product selectivity up to 99.7% and protein content in yeast biomass up to 28.7%. The factors determining the use of biomass as animal feed, i.e. protein concentration and presence of metal ions, were discussed as well.     

Vegetable waste as substrate and source of suitable microflora for bio-hydrogen production

Self-fermentation of cellulosic substrates to produce biohydrogen without inoculum addition nor pretreatments was investigated. Dark fermentation of two different substrates made of leaf-shaped vegetable refuses (V) and leaf-shaped vegetable refuses plus potato peels (VP), was taken in consideration. Batch experiments were carried out, under two mesophilic anaerobic conditions (28 and 37 °C), in order to isolate and to identify potential H₂-producing bacterial strains contained in the vegetable extracts. The effect of initial glucose concentration (at 1, 5 and 10 g/L) on fermentative H₂ production by the isolates was also evaluated.H₂ production from self-fermentation of both biomasses was found to be feasible, without methane evolution, showing the highest yield for V biomass at 28 °C (24 L/kg VS). The pH control of the culture medium proved to be a critical parameter. The isolates had sequence similarities ≥98% with already known strains, belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae (γ-proteobacteria) and Streptococcaceae (Firmicutes). Four genera found in the samples, namely Pectobacterium, Raoultella, Rahnella and Lactococcus have not been previously described for H₂ production from glucose. The isolates showed higher yield (1.6–2.2 mol H₂/mol glucose_added) at low glucose concentration (1 g/L), while the maximum H₂ production ranged from 410 to 1016 mL/L and was obtained at a substrate concentration of 10 g/L. The results suggested that vegetable waste can be effectively used as both, substrate and source of suitable microflora for bio-hydrogen production.     

Insights into pyrolysis and catalytic co-pyrolysis upgrading of biomass and waste rubber seed oil to promote the formation of aromatics hydrocarbon

To solve the problem of low aromatic hydrocarbon yield and selectivity in biomass catalytic pyrolysis, we used added oxygen-containing hydrogen supplier of rubber seed oil (RSO) with a higher hydrogen-to-carbon ratio to investigate the thermal decomposition behaviors, kinetic and production distribution of biomass, cellulose and RSO with the weight ratio of 1:2 using thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) for kinetic analysis and fixed bed reactor with the feed composition of 1.2 g: 0.4 mL/min (Biomass to RSO) for product distribution in non-catalytic and catalytic co-pyrolysis over a HZSM-5 catalyst. The results show that there was a positive synergistic interaction between biomass and RSO according to the difference in weight loss, which could decrease the formation of solid coke at the end of experiment. The addition of the HZSM-5 catalyst can markedly increase the reaction activity, accelerate the reaction rate, and the reaction Ea, leading to a substantial increase in the conversion rate; furthermore, the residual carbon content will decrease, and the activations of Cellulose + RSO + Catalyst and Biomass + RSO + Catalyst are only 50.80 kJ/mol and 62.36 kJ/mol, respectively. The kinetic analysis showed that adding a catalyst did not change the decomposition mechanism. Co-pyrolysis of biomass and RSO could effectively improve the yield and selectivity of aromatics, when the pyrolysis temperature and catalytic temperature were 550 °C and 500 °C, respectively, the mass space velocity of RSO was 0.4 mL/min, the reaction time was 30min, the yields of benzene, toluene, xylene and ethyl benzene (BTXE) were up to 78.77%, and the selectivity of benzene, toluene and xylene was much better. Finally, the coke yield was substantially lower.