Scale-up studies for stable,long-term indoor and outdoor production of hydrogen by immobilized Rhodobacter capsulatus

Photofermentative hydrogen production by immobilized Rhodobacter capsulatus YO3 was carried out in a novel photobioreactor in sequential batch mode under indoor and outdoor conditions. Long-term H₂ production was realized in a 1.4 L photobioreactor for 64 days using Rhodobacter capsulatus YO3 immobilized with 4% (w/v) agar on 5 mM sucrose and 4 mM glutamate. The highest hydrogen yield (19 mol H₂/mol sucrose) and hydrogen productivity (0.73 mmol H₂ L^?1 h^?1) were achieved indoors on 5 mM sucrose. The effect of initial sucrose concentration (5 mM, 10 mM, and 20 mM) on hydrogen production was also investigated. Sustained hydrogen production was carried out under natural, outdoor conditions as well. For the outdoor experiments, the highest hydrogen productivity and yield were obtained as 0.87 ± 0.06 mmol H₂ L^?1 h^?1 and 6.1 ± 0.2 mol H₂/mol sucrose, respectively on 10 mM sucrose. Furthermore, this system prevented sudden pH drops and fluctuations caused by the utilization of sucrose throughout the process. These results demonstrate that a proper immobilization setup can lead to long-term efficient and robust hydrogen production even under naturally varying conditions.     

Design,modeling, and analysis of a high performance piezoelectric energy harvester for intelligent tires

Basic parameters affecting vehicle safety and performance such as pressure, temperature, friction coefficient, and contact‐patch dimensions are measured in intelligent tires via sensors that require electric power for operation and wireless communication to be synchronized to the vehicle monitoring and control system. Piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) can extract a fraction of energy that is wasted as a result of deflection during rolling of tires, and this extracted energy can be used to power up sensors embedded in intelligent tires. A new design of PEH inspired from Cymbal PEHs is introduced, and its performance is evaluated in this paper. Cymbal PEHs are proven to be useful in vibration energy harvesting, and in this paper, for the first time, the modified shape of Cymbal energy harvester is used as strain‐based energy harvester for the tire application. The shape of the harvester is adjusted in a way that it can be safely embedded on the inner surface of tires. In addition to the high performance, ease of manufacturing is another advantage of this new design. A multiphysics model is developed and validated to determine the output voltage, power, and energy of the designed PEH. The modeling results indicated that the maximum output voltage, the maximum electric power, and the accumulated harvested energy are about 3.5 V, 2.8 mW, and 24 mJ/rev, respectively, which are sufficient to power two sensors. In addition, the possibility is shown to supply power to five sensors by increase in piezoelectric material thickness. The effect of rolling tire temperature on the performance of the proposed PEH is also studied.     

磁感应或磁共振,哪个更适合于无线充电?

磁感应与磁共振是目前最主要的两种无线充电技术,本文分析各种技术的优缺点。本文网络版地址:http://www.eepw.com.cn/article/145521.htm     

A study on vibration of Stewart platform-based machine tool table

In this paper, an analytical study on the vibrations of a parallel manipulator is addressed. In the vibration equation of the moving platform, the damping and stiffness of the pods are taken into account. The eigenvalue problem of the moving platform is solved to obtain the natural frequencies. Considering the role of different factors effective on the mass and stiffness matrices of the platform, natural frequencies for different configurations are investigated. The results obtained by analytical approach are further verified through FEM simulation. The effect of variation in position and orientation of the moving platform on the change in stiffness of its supporting chain, inertia tensor and natural frequencies and mode shapes of the platform as well as the effects of different payloads are studied. The vibration of the platform in different configurations is studied in different cutting conditions. The ranges of resonance frequencies and vibration amplitudes are then investigated. Finally, proper configurations of the moving platform are determined to avoid dynamic instability in different machining conditions. It also will be illustrated in this paper that some specific features embodied in the mechanism are appropriate for high-speed milling.     

Thermodynamic modeling and assessment of a combined coal gasification and alkaline water electrolysis system for hydrogen production

The performance of a clean energy system that combines the coal gasification and alkaline water electrolyzer concepts to produce hydrogen is evaluated through thermodynamic modeling and simulations. A parametric study is conducted to determine the effect of water ratio in coal slurry, gasifier temperature, effectiveness of carbon dioxide removal, and hydrogen recovery efficiency of the pressure swing adsorption unit on the system hydrogen production. The exergy efficiency and exergy destruction in each system component are also evaluated. The results reveal that the overall energy and exergy efficiencies of this system are ∼58% and ∼55%, respectively. The weight ratio of the hydrogen yielded to the coal fed to this system is ∼0.126. Although this system produces hydrogen from coal, the greenhouse gases emitted from this system are fairly low.     

Conceptual design of a novel ammonia-fuelled portable solid oxide fuel cell system

A novel portable electric power generation system, fuelled by ammonia, is introduced and its performance is evaluated. In this system, a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stack that consists of anode-supported planar cells with Ni-YSZ anode, YSZ electrolyte and YSZ-LSM cathode is used to generate electric power. The small size, simplicity, and high electrical efficiency are the main advantages of this environmentally friendly system. The results predicted through computer simulation of this system confirm that the first-law efficiency of 41.1% with the system operating voltage of 25.6 V is attainable for a 100 W portable system, operated at the cell voltage of 0.73 V and fuel utilization ratio of 80%. In these operating conditions, an ammonia cylinder with a capacity of 0.8 l is sufficient to sustain full-load operation of the portable system for 9 h and 34 min. The effect of the cell operating voltage at different fuel utilization ratios on the number of cells required in the SOFC stack, the first- and second-law efficiencies, the system operating voltage, the excess air, the heat transfer from the SOFC stack, and the duration of operation of the portable system with a cylinder of ammonia fuel, are also studied through a detailed sensitivity analysis. Overall, the ammonia-fuelled SOFC system introduced in this paper exhibits an appropriate performance for portable power generation applications.     

Developing fuel map to predict the effect of fuel composition on the maximum efficiency of solid oxide fuel cells

At any given cell operating condition, a fuel map can be developed to predict the effect of a fuel containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and inert gas atoms on the maximum cell efficiency (MCE) of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). To create a fuel map, a thermodynamic model is developed to obtain the fuels that would yield identical MCE for SOFCs. These fuels make a continuous curve in the ternary coordinate system. A fuel map is established by developing continuous fuel curves for different MCEs at the same operating condition of a cell and representing them in the carbon-hydrogen-oxygen (C-H-O) ternary diagram. The graphical representation of fuel maps can be applied to predict the effect of the fuel composition and fuel processor on the MCE of SOFCs. As a general result, among the fuels that can be directly utilized in SOFCs, at the same temperature and pressure, the one located at the intersection of the H-C axis and the carbon deposition boundary (CDB) curve in the C-H-O ternary diagram provides the highest MCE. For any fuel that can be indirectly utilized in SOFCs, the steam reforming fuel processor always yields a higher MCE than auto-thermal reforming or partial oxidation fuel processors at the same anode inlet fuel temperature.     

A new approach to investigate relationships between certain instrumentally measured appearance parameters and their visually perceived equivalents in the automotive industry

Appearance control has continuously been a major challenge to the automotive industry. In order to implement a consistent control on the appearance of automotive finishes, objective measurement of various appearance attributes such as gloss, distinctness of image, orange peel, etc., is indispensable to the automotive manufacturers. In the present study, attempts were made to find the correlation between visually perceived and instrumentally measured appearance of achromatic automotive finishes. To this end, three physical scales of appearance attributes, namely specular gloss, distinctness of image, and orange peel were prepared using a series of metallic black, metallic gray, metallic silver, and solid white automotive finishes. The samples were visually evaluated by a panel of 16 observers, by utilizing an also prepared lightness scale, in a light cabinet having a 45/0 illumination/observation geometry. The innovative use of a common lightness scale in the present study showed that there is a surprisingly good correlation between instrumentally measured specular gloss, distinctness of image, and Wave scan LW and Wd parameters, and the corresponding visually evaluated data at the four investigated achromatic levels.     

Modelling the strip thickness in hot steel rolling mills using least‐squares support vector machines

The development and implementation of better control strategies to improve the overall performance of a plant is often hampered by the lack of available measurements of key quality variables. One way to resolve this problem is to develop a soft sensor that is capable of providing process information as often as necessary for control. One potential area for implementation is in a hot steel rolling mill, where the final strip thickness is the most important variable to consider. Difficulties with this approach include the fact that the data may not be available when needed or that different conditions (operating points) will produce different process conditions. In this paper, a soft sensor is developed for the hot steel rolling mill process using least‐squares support vector machines and a properly designed bias update term. It is shown that the system can handle multiple different operating conditions (different strip thickness setpoints, and input conditions).