Energies, Volume 6, Issue 3

Carrot pomace, a major agricultural waste from the juice industry, was used as a feedstock for bioethanol production by fermentation with the thermotolerant yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus. Treatment of the carrot pomace with Accellerase^TM 1000 and pec...

We examine technological progress in the US and Canada to answer the question: has the efficiency (e.g., the edible energy efficiency, or EEE) for producing agricultural products in the US and Canada increased in recent decades? Specifically, we dete...

Downsizing and turbocharging is a widely used approach to reduce the fuel consumption of spark ignited engines while retaining the maximum power output. However, a substantial loss in drivability must be expected due to the occurrence of the so-calle...

Constant power loads (CPLs), interfaced through active rectifiers can be used for improving the stability of induction generator (IG)-based wind turbines under balanced grid voltage dips by providing the reactive power. Under asymmetrical grid faults...

Spinel LiMn₂O₄ is an appealing candidate cathode material for Li-ion rechargeable batteries, but it suffers from severe capacity fading, especially at higher temperature (55 °C) during discharging/charging. In recent years, many attempts have been ma...

This study presents an experimental investigation of a piston engine driven by compressed air. The compressed air engine was a modified 100 cm³ internal combustion engine obtained from a motorcycle manufacturer. The experiments in this study used a t...

A novel pumped hydro combined with compressed air energy storage (PHCA) system is proposed in this paper to resolve the problems of bulk energy storage in the wind power generation industry over an area in China, which is characterised by drought and...

Catalytic refining of bio-oil by reacting with olefin/alcohol over solid acids can convert bio-oil to oxygen-containing fuels. Reactivities of groups of compounds typically present in bio-oil with 1-octene (or 1-butanol) were studied at 120 °C/3 h ov...

The mechanism of hydrothermal liquefaction of cypress was investigated by examining the effects of temperature and retention time on the characteristics of the solid residues remaining after liquefaction. The solid residues were divided into acid-sol...

A membrane bioreactor was developed to counteract the inhibition effect of furfural in ethanol production. Furfural, a major inhibitor in lignocellulosic hydrolyzates, is a highly toxic substance which is formed from pentose sugars released during th...

Dried spent yeast (DSY) and its hydrolysate (DSYH) were used as low-cost nitrogen supplements to improve ethanol production from sweet sorghum juice by Saccharomyces cerevisiae NP01 under very high gravity (VHG) fermentation (280 g·L⁻¹ of total sugar...

Percolation theory is generalized to predict the effective properties of specific solid oxide fuel cell composite electrodes, which consist of a pure ion conducting material (e.g., YSZ or GDC) and a mixed electron and ion conducting material (e.g., L...

It is shown that carbon fuel cell technology can be combined with that of high temperature steam electrolysis by the incorporation of carbon fuel at the cell anode, with the resulting reduction of the required electrolysis voltage by around 1 V. The...

This paper analyzes and simulates the Li-ion battery charging process for a solar powered battery management system. The battery is charged using a non-inverting synchronous buck-boost DC/DC power converter. The system operates in buck, buck-boost,...

Reconfiguration, by exchanging the functional links between the elements of the system, represents one of the most important measures which can improve the operational performance of a distribution system. The authors propose an original method, aimi...

he accurate forecasting of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from fossil fuel energy consumption is a key requirement for making energy policy and environmental strategy. In this paper, a novel quantum harmony search (QHS) algorithm-based discounted mea...

The present work investigates the matching of an advanced small scale Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Rankine cycle plant with end-user thermal and electric load. The power plant consists of a concentrated solar power field co-powered by a biomass furn...

Research in marine current energy, including tidal and ocean currents, has undergone significant growth in the past decade. The horizontal-axis marine current turbine is one of the machines used to harness marine current energy, which appears to be t...

Suitability of energy systems based on Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) has been widely tested in the field of wind energy, being able to supply power in cases such as low wind speeds or voltage dips, and to store energy when there are...

This paper presents a new, accurate load forecasting technique robust to fluctuations due to unusual load behavioral changes in buildings, i.e., the potential for small commercial buildings with heterogeneous stores. The proposed scheme is featured w...

The objective of the present work is to perform an evaluation of the performance provided by various technologies for wave energy conversion in the Portuguese continental coastal environment. The wave climate in the target area is first analyzed usin...

The design of a four-bed three-stage adsorption cycle has been proposed to reduce the volume of the six-bed three-stage adsorption cycle. A simulation model for the proposed innovative cycle was developed to analyse the influence of cycle time on the...

Electricity is indispensable and of strategic importance to national economies. Consequently, electric utilities make an effort to balance power generation and demand in order to offer a good service at a competitive price. For this purpose, these ut...

China has witnessed a fast economic growth in the recent two decades. However, the heavy energy exploitation seems to show a negative relation to regional economic growth. Thus, the issue is whether the energy production is a curse or blessing for th...

A novel artificial cobweb routing algorithm (ACRA) for routing the tree-type physical topology of a low-voltage distribution network in a smart grid is proposed and analyzed in this paper. The establishment, maintenance and reconstruction of the rout...

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a very innovative and promising solution for greenhouse gases (GHG) reduction, i.e., capturing carbon dioxide (CO₂) at its source and storing it indefinitely to avoid its release to the atmosphere. This paper inves...

This study estimates the fiscal, energy, and environmental tradeoffs involved in supplying California’s future energy needs. An integrated framework is developed whereby an econometric forecasting system of California energy demand is coupled with en...

Lowering the exergy content of heat required for heating purposes decreases the primary energy consumption. District heating systems are often an important link between facilities that generate heat with low exergy content and consumers. Exergetic ef...

The harmonic impact caused by wind turbines should be carefully investigated before wind turbines are interconnected. However, the harmonic currents of wind turbines are not easily predicted due to the variations of wind speed. If the harmonic curren...

Producing electricity from waste gas is an after treatment for waste gas while recovering the energy content. This paper addresses the methodology to calculate the effect that waste gas energy recovery has on lowering the impact of climate change. Gr...

The formation of methane hydrate in two significantly different media was investigated, using silica gel as an artificial medium and loess as a natural medium. The methane hydrate formation was observed through the depletion of water in the matrix, m...

This paper presents an improved control strategy for both the rotor side converter (RSC) and grid side converter (GSC) of a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG)-based wind turbine (WT) system to enhance the low voltage ride through (LVRT) capability...

An experimental platform was designed and built for testing the thermal performance of a water/steam cavity receiver. The experimental platform was utilized to investigate the start-up performance and operation characteristics of the receiver. The el...