Effects of sintering temperature and Bi2O3, Y2O3 and MgO co-doping on the dielectric properties of X8R BaTiO3-based ceramics

Bi₂O₃, Y₂O₃ and MgO co-doped BaTiO₃ (BT)-based X8R ceramics were synthesized successfully for the first time. The effects of the sintering temperature and Bi₂O₃, Y₂O₃ and MgO dopants on the dielectric properties were investigated systematically. Bi₂O₃ doping can increase the Curie temperature (T_c), but reduces the overall dielectric permittivity. On the other hand, Y₂O₃ doping is beneficial to the formation of core-shell microstructure and the increase of T_c, whereas MgO can prevent excessive Y₂O₃ from diffusing into grain core, and thereby further contributes to the generation of the core–shell microstructure. The generation of the typical core-shell microstructure was confirmed and investigated in detail by using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It is argued that the synergistic effects of Bi₂O₃, Y₂O₃ and MgO co-doping in terms of the formation of the core-shell structure and the increase of T_c, can help improve the temperature stability of the dielectric permittivity effectively. Increasing the sintering temperature leads to an increase in the grain size, which in turn leads to an increase in the overall dielectric permittivity due to the grain size effect.     

Unique CNTs-chained Li4Ti5O12 nanoparticles as excellent high rate anode materials for Li-ion capacitors

Composite anode materials with a unique architecture of carbon nanotubes (CNTs)-chained spinel lithium titanate (Li₄Ti₅O₁₂, LTO) nanoparticles are prepared for lithium ion capacitors (LICs). The CNTs networks derived from commercial conductive slurry not only bring out a steric hindrance effect to restrict the growth of Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ particles but greatly enhance the electronic conductivity of the CNTs/LTO composites, both have contributed to the excellent rate capability and cycle stability. The capacity retention at 30 C (1 C = 175 mA g^?1) is as high as 89.7% of that at 0.2 C with a CNTs content of 11 wt%. Meanwhile, there is not any capacity degradation after 500 cycles at 5 C. The LIC assembled with activated carbon (AC) cathode and such a CNTs/LTO composite anode displays excellent energy storage properties, including a high energy density of 35 Wh kg^?1 at 7434 W kg^?1, and a high capacity retention of 87.8% after 2200 cycles at 1 A g^?1. These electrochemical performances outperform the reported data achieved on other LTO anode-based LICs. Considering the facile and scalable preparation process proposed herein, the CNTs/LTO composites can be very potential anode materials for hybrid capacitors towards high power-energy outputs.     

基于碳纳米管的超级电容器聚吡咯电极复合方法

For the defect that the mechanical properties of polypyrrole supercapacitors decrease with charge and discharge cycles, and the cycle stability is poor, a compound method of polypyrrole electrode for supercapacitors based on multi-walled carbon nanotubes is proposed. The structure of the formed polypyrrole coated multi-walled carbon nanotubes effectively increase the specific surface area of the electrode material, the utilization rate of the active material and the electrical conductivity, improve the rapid charge and discharge performance of the electrode material, and greatly improve cyclic stability of polypyrrole. The composite electrode materi- al of polypyrrole and functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes for supercapacitors is prepared by pulse current deposition meth- od. It is scanned at a scanning rate of 1000mV?s -1 in a 3mol?L -1 potassium chloride electrolyte, after 100,000-cycle, the capacity on- ly declines by 16%.     

Encapsulation of MnS Nanocrystals into N,S-Co-doped Carbon as Anode Material for Full Cell Sodium-Ion Capacitors

Sodium-ion capacitors(SICs)have received increasing interest for grid stationary energy storage application due to their affordability,high power,and energy densities.The major challenge for SICs is to overcome the kinetics imbalance between faradaic anode and nonfaradaic cathode.To boost the Na+reaction kinetics,the present work demonstrated a high-rate MnS-based anode by embedding the MnS nanocrystals into the N,S-co-doped carbon matrix(MnS@NSC).Benefiting from the fast pseudocapacitive Na+storage behavior,the resulting composite exhibits extraordinary rate capability(205.6 mAh g−1 at 10 A g−1)and outstanding cycling stability without notable degradation after 2000 cycles.A prototype SIC was demonstrated using MnS@NSC anode and N-doped porous carbon(NC)cathode;the obtained hybrid SIC device can display a high energy density of 139.8 Wh kg−1 and high power density of 11,500 W kg−1,as well as excellent cyclability with 84.5%capacitance retention after 3000 cycles.The superior electrochemical performance is contributed to downsizing of MnS and encapsulation of conductive N,S-co-doped carbon matrix,which not only promote the Na+and electrons transport,but also buffer the volume variations and maintain the structure integrity during Na+insertion/extraction,enabling its comparable fast reaction kinetics and cyclability with NC cathode.     

Study on estimating electric potential in space between parallel electrodes

We have been studying on estimating distribution of permittivity between measurement electrodes using capacitance and electric potential. Two arc electrodes were separated by long distance and there electrodes were surrounded by additional electrodes respectively. In past research work, we carried out numerical electric analysis for calculating the capacitance and electric potential using Finite Element Method (FEM) and compared with experimental and numerical results. The capacitance values were almost agreed with experimental and numerical results. However, the electric potential values were different between experimental and numerical results in conventional studies. In this paper, we proposed an equivalent circuit including the stray capacity and measurement method for capacitance, the electric potential in space between long distance electrodes was estimated.     

Stabilizing temperature-capacitance dependence of (Sr,Pb, Bi)TiO3-Bi4Ti3O12 solutions for energy storage

(1-x)Sr_0.7Pb_0.15Bi_0.1TiO₃-xBi₄Ti₃O₁₂ ((1-x)SPBT-xBIT, x = 0-0.125) bulk ceramics were developed and calcined via the solid-state method, aimed at the application of pulsed power capacitors. The phase structures, temperature stability, hysteresis loop, and discharge properties were systematically investigated. Considering both the temperature stability and dielectric properties, 0.925SPBT-0.075BIT bulk ceramics with a capacitance variation satisfying the X7R specification were developed for pulsed power capacitors. The energy storage density was 0.252 J/cm³, and the ceramics showed high temperature stability at 80 kV/cm. The discharge current waveforms of the 0.925SPBT-0.075BIT ceramics were recorded. A high discharge power density of approximately 1.01 × 10⁸ W/kg with an 8 Ω load resistor and short discharge period of 84 ns were achieved at 50 kV/cm. The good temperature stability properties and high power density show that the 0.925SPBT-0.075BIT ceramics are well suited for pulsed power capacitors with a wide temperature range.     

Passive fuel cell/lithium-ion capacitor hybridization for vehicular applications

Electric recreational vehicles represent a new challenge in terms of power supply systems compared to the current light-duty electric vehicles, which achieve high performance and long-range. The recreational vehicles need to heed the limited dimension requirements while assuring the high requested power. This paper proposes an integration of Lithium-Ion Capacitor (LIC) with Fuel Cell (FC) without any power electronic device for a three-wheel electric motorcycle. Unlike other hybrid power supply systems, the proposed FC-LIC passive configuration is lighter, compact, more efficient, and simpler to implement. Due to the different impedance of the components the system is self-management, in which FC supplies the average power component and LIC operates as a low-pass filter. In this respect, a simulator is built based on experimental tests to study the system performance in terms of hydrogen consumption and FC degradation. Subsequently, the system is tested under three standard motorcycle driving cycles at three different FC system lifespan stages. The obtained results demonstrate that a passive topology can supply the requested power along different FC stages of life and reported just an increment of 12% of hydrogen consumption at the oldest condition compared to the new condition.     

Direct model-based predictive control scheme without cost function for voltage source inverters with reduced common-mode voltage

This paper presents a direct model-based predictive control scheme for voltage source inverters (VSIs) with reduced common-mode voltages (CMVs). The developed method directly finds optimal vectors without using repetitive calculation of a cost function. To adjust output currents with the CMVs in the range of –V_dc/6 to +V_dc/6, the developed method uses voltage vectors, as finite control resources, excluding zero voltage vectors which produce the CMVs in the VSI within ±V_dc/2. In a model-based predictive control (MPC), not using zero voltage vectors increases the output current ripples and the current errors. To alleviate these problems, the developed method uses two non-zero voltage vectors in one sampling step. In addition, the voltage vectors scheduled to be used are directly selected at every sampling step once the developed method calculates the future reference voltage vector, saving the efforts of repeatedly calculating the cost function. And the two non-zero voltage vectors are optimally allocated to make the output current approach the reference current as close as possible. Thus, low CMV, rapid current-following capability and sufficient output current ripple performance are attained by the developed method. The results of a simulation and an experiment verify the effectiveness of the developed method.     

Loss cost reduction and power quality improvement with applying robust optimization algorithm for optimum energy storage system placement and capacitor bank allocation

Power losses cause the underutilization of distributed generation (DG) units in addition to the cost increasing in microgrid. Minimizing these losses has been focused in many papers. Using energy storage system (ESS) is a crucial solution for loss reduction. ESS can balance the power exchange in on-peak times where its location and size optimization can improve the microgrid efficiency and reduce the loss cost significantly. Moreover, to ensure the power quality by improving the voltage profile, capacitor bank can be installed optimally on some buses. Optimization of size and location of the capacitor bank can enhance the reactive power that is leading to power loss reduction. In other words, the capacitor bank is applied to compensate the total reactive power and consequently, the current is reduced that results in power loss reduction. In this article, the problem is defined as the optimum location and size of ESS and capacitor bank in the microgrid. Due to the complexity of the problem in many options for selecting the buses to implement these elements (ESS and capacitor bank), robust approach using the particle swarm optimization algorithm and general algebraic modeling system are applied for optimization process. In addition, the uncertainty of renewable DGs such as photovoltaic and wind turbine is modeled by probability density functions and Monte-Carlo is used for selecting more probable cases in optimization processes. The results show the loss cost reduction and improvement in voltage and power profile with less fluctuations and more stability.     

Iron Loss Calculation of AC Filter Inductor for Three‐Phase PWM Inverters

In recent years, remarkable advancement of new power semiconductor devices, such as SiC and GaN, enables the increase of switching frequency of power converters, and hence the volume of passive components, such as ac filters and transformers, can be reduced. However, temperature rise caused by the inductor loss is increasing, and hence iron loss evaluation of the inductor is one of the most important issues to realize high power density converters. Conventionally, an improved generalized Steinmetz equation (iGSE) has proposed in order to calculate the iron loss under a pulse voltage magnetizing condition. However, accurate iron loss calculation of the ac filter inductor used in a PWM inverter cannot be realized. The authors have proposed two methods of iron loss evaluation of ac filter inductors. The first one is a loss map method which can calculate the iron loss without using a real PWM inverter. Another one is an ILA (Inductor Loss Analyzer) which can measure the iron loss in every switching period in a real PWM inverter. In this paper, comparisons of the iron loss between the ILA and the loss map method on both the single‐phase and three‐phase inverters are studied. It is found that iron loss of the ac filter inductor in the three‐phase PWM inverter which is calculated by the loss map method cause a large error on a specific condition. In order to prevent the calculation error, the authors proposed a revised loss map method and proved the effectiveness of the method.