Simulation and experimental investigation of two hybrid solar domestic water heaters with drain water heat recovery

In this paper, the performance of two solar domestic hot waters (SDHW) with drain water heat recovery (DWHR) units is investigated. Both SDHW systems are recently installed at the Archetype Sustainable Twin Houses at Kortright Center, Vaughan, Ontario. The first SDWH system in House A consists of a flat plate solar thermal collector in combination with a gas boiler and a DWHR unit. The second SDHW system in House B includes an evacuated tube solar collector, an electric tank, and a DWHR unit. Both systems are modeled in TRNSYS, and the models are validated by experimental data. The addition of the DWHR and the flat‐plate solar thermal collector would result in 1831 kWh of annual energy saving in House A. While the addition of the DWHR and the evacuated tube collector in House B would result in an annual energy saving of 1771 kWh. Subsequently, the models are used to investigate the performance of similar systems for five major Canadian cities of Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver. The conjunctions of solar thermal collectors with DWHR units are found most beneficial in Edmonton. It is also noted from experimental and simulated results that flat‐plate solar collector‐based water heater produced more thermal energy than the system based on the evacuated tube solar collector for all major Canadian cities. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An evaluation of enhanced oil recovery strategies for a heavy oil reservoir after cold production with sand

Cold heavy oil production with sand (CHOPS) is the process of choice for unconsolidated heavy oil reservoirs with relatively high gas content. The key challenge of CHOPS is that the recovery factor tends to be between 5% and 15%, implying that the majority of the oil remains in the ground after the process is rendered uneconomic. Continued cold production (without sands) is not productive for a post‐CHOPS reservoir because of the low oil saturation and depleted reservoir pressure in the wormhole regions. There is a need to develop viable recovery processes for post‐CHOPS reservoirs. Here, different follow‐up processes are examined for a post‐CHOPS heavy oil reservoir. In post‐CHOPS cold water flooding, severe water channeling is ineffective at displacing high viscosity heavy oil. Hot water flooding improves the sweep efficiency and produces more oil compared with cold water flooding. However, the swept region is limited to the domain between the neighboring wormhole networks, and the energy efficiency of the process is relatively poor. Compared with the hot water flooding case, steam flooding achieves higher oil production rates and lower water use. A cyclic steam stimulation strategy achieves the best performance regarding oil production rates and water usage. Based on our results, it is observed that thermally based techniques alone are not capable to recover the oil economically for post‐CHOPS reservoirs. However, it is suggested that techniques with combined use of thermal energy and solvent could potentially yield efficient oil recovery methods for these reservoirs. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimal design of a light commercial freezer through the analysis of the combined effects of capillary tube diameter and refrigerant charge on the performance

In this work, a discussion on a methodology to optimize the performance of a commercial freezer by using a simulation tool is presented. In order to provide a practical tool for deciding the best combination of refrigerant charge and capillary tube diameter, the results of the numerical studies are shown in the form of two-dimensional maps. The usefulness of this type of representation lies in the possibility of selecting the best operating point of the system, taking into account not only the efficiency or the power consumption but also the technical constrictions imposed by parameters such as the suction line temperature, the condenser subcooling, the evaporator superheat, and the run-time ratio. The discussion leads to the conclusion that the useful performance map is drastically reduced when all the operation requirements must be satisfied. Once the system design had been optimized, an additional numerical study, aimed at identifying the influence of the external conditions on the system behavior, was performed. The results show that the performance reduction can be effectively minimized modifying the refrigerant charge.     

Parametric optimization of packed bed for activated coal fly ash waste heat recovery using CFD techniques

Coal fly ash is an industrial solid waste generated from coal preparation during the processing and cleaning of coal for electric power generation. Comprehensive investigation on the reutilization of waste heat of activated coal fly ash is of great economic significance. The method of recovering the waste heat, proposed in this study,is the transfer of heat from activated coal fly ash to gas with the movement of air using the packed bed, providing valuable energy sources for preheating the raw coal fly ash to reduce the overall energy consumption. The investigation is carried on the heat transfer characteristics of gas–solid(activated coal fly ash) phases and air temperature fields of the packed bed under some key conditions via computational fluid dynamics. A two dimensional geometry is utilized to represent key parts of packed bed. The distribution mechanism of the temperature field for gas phase is analyzed based on the transient temperature contours at different times. The results show that the obtained rule of gas–solid heat transfer can effectively evaluate the influences of operating parameters on the air temperature in the packed bed. Simultaneously, it is found that no temperature differences exist in the hot air at the outlet of the packed bed. The investigation provides guidance for the design and optimization of other similar energy recovery apparatuses in industries.     

Theoretical calculation simulation studies of ABV nuclear reactor coupled with desalination system

In this paper, research has been conducted on the floating type nuclear power plant named as ABV reactor which is designed for district heating, power, and sea water desalination by OKBM facility at Russia. This reactor was tested under different thermal loads during the designing phase, and three modules have been investigated. Theoretical calculations and simulation studies have been performed on these three modules having specifications as ABV‐6M with 47MW_th, ABV‐6 with 38MW_th, and ABV‐3 with 18MW_th.The results obtained from these modules have been calculated mathematically and verified by simulation. We have compared the originally derived data of ABV desalination system with our theoretical and simulation analysis. The results from two desalination techniques including RO and RO + MED have been calculated and are presented in this paper with details. The results obtained from both analysis show that the efficiency of ABV nuclear reactor desalination system increases with the decrease in corresponding water cost ratio. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Space charge limitation on the response time of organic photodiodes

The dynamic response of an organic bulk heterojunction photodiode to small changes in applied bias or light intensity is investigated as function of the intensity of a constant background illumination by means of photoimpedance and transient photocurrent measurements. For bias voltages close to the open circuit voltage we find that the response timescale with the square root of the light intensity. The results can be quantitatively explained in terms of a space charge limitation on the photocurrent as predicted by Goodman and Rose (J. Appl. Phys. 42, 2823 (1971)). The relaxation time of the diode at open circuit corresponds to the lifetime of the slowest charge carrier in the diode. This relaxation time is determined by the dielectric constant and the smallest of the two carrier mobilities in the bulk heterojunction. This illustrates the importance of balanced carrier mobilities for obtaining diodes with fast response time at low bias for e.g. imaging arrays.     

Physics‐based model of lithium‐ion batteries running on a circuit simulator

The authors developed a physics‐based equivalent circuit model of a lithium‐ion battery (LIB) whose parameters are continually updated, reflecting the theoretical calculation results of the Butler‐Volmer equation, diffusion equations of the lithium‐ion and lithium, and Nernst equations of the liquid and solid phases. The developed model was applied to the charge/discharge simulations of an LIB, and the experimental and simulated results of constant current discharges and pulsed‐charge/discharge were found to be in excellent agreement. In particular, using the developed model, analyzing transient responses of the LIB derived from the transition of the electric double layer charging to the electrode reaction is possible. These results demonstrate that the electrochemical performance of an LIB can be calculated on a circuit simulator using the developed model.     

Physicochemical and environmental characteristics of alkali leaching residue of wolframite and process for valuable metals recovery

Physicochemical and mineralogical characteristics of an alkali leaching residue of wolframite were studied by XRD, SEM?EDS, chemical phase analysis, mineral liberation analyzer (MLA), and TG?DSC methods. Batch leaching tests, toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) tests and Chinese standard leaching tests (CSLT) were conducted to determine the environmental mobility of toxic elements. The results show that, due to the high contents of W, Fe, Mn, Sn, and Nb, the residue is with high resource value, but the content of a toxic element, As, is also high. The existing minerals of the investigated elements mainly occur as monomer particles, but it is difficult to extract these valuable metals by conventional acid leaching due to their mineral properties. The release of As increases over time in acidic environment. The leaching concentration of all investigated harmful elements through TCLP is within the limiting value, while the leaching concentration of As through CSLT exceeds the limiting value by more than 4 times, so the residue is classified as hazardous solid waste based on the Chinese standard. A process for valuable metals recovery from this residue was proposed. Preliminary experimental results indicated that the main valuable metals could be extracted effectively.