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Energy Storage: From Chemicals to Materials and More

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "D1: Advanced Energy Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2020) | Viewed by 16934

Special Issue Editors

School of Electrical, Computer and Telecommunications, The University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
Interests: distributed generation; energy storage; smart grids
Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy (LEPABE), Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto (FEUP), R. Dr. Roberto Frias S/N, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
Interests: sustentability; sustainable energy systems; biofuels; microalgae; energy storage systems; energy carriers
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, 76-1, Kasuga-koen, Kasuga-shi, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan
Interests: energy systems modeling; co-benefits assessment of climate change mitigation strategies; hybrid renewable energy systems; energy systems integration
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Biofuel Research Team (BRTeam) / Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran (ABRII), AREEO, Karaj, Iran
Interests: biofuels; climate change; sustainability; nanosystems
Center for Innovation in Engineering and Industrial Technology (CIETI) and School of Engineering (ISEP), Polytechnic of Porto (P.PORTO), R. Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida 431, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal
Interests: energy quality; energy and buildings; energy and environmental indicators; renewable energy systems; sustainable energy systems; engineering education
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The world we know has changed and developed exponentially in the past century. Central to development is the increasing use of energy, mostly generated using fossil resources such as oil, coal, and natural gas. The current situation results in significant impacts, not only environmental (in particular climate change, which has started to show its devastative effects all over the World) but also economic and social, as energy utilization is transversal to all human activities. Many governments and international organizations have recognized the need to tackle these issues, resulting in the definition and/or implementation of various strategies to minimize the impacts of energy generation, for example, by promoting energy efficiency or by supporting the production and utilization of renewable energy. Concerning the later, the United Nations has recognized this fact in goal 7 of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which stress the need to ensure that everyone has access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy, relevant to other SDG goals such as 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 12 (Responsible Production and Consumption), and 13 (Climate Action). Thus, nations have committed themselves to improve their energy performance in various arenas including through the efficient use of energy resources and by using more sustainable sources of energy, of which renewable energy carriers are believed to be an indispensable part of the solution. However, the intermittency of many of these renewable energy resources makes them unreliable and introduces significant economic and security issues. Energy storage is currently seen as one of the best ways of minimizing those effects, further highlighting the significance of the energy storage topic. The current discussion in this domain mainly revolves around ways to store surplus energy in a safe and efficient way, so that it can be used whenever and wherever it is needed.

Therefore, this Special Issue of Energies aims to contribute to the energy storage agenda through a combination of multi-disciplinary and state-of-the-art scientific knowledge, to improve energy availability, security, and the performance and competitiveness of current or future renewable energy generation systems.

We invite authors of papers on innovative technical developments, reviews, case studies, and strategic and policy discussions, as well as assessments from different disciplines that are relevant to energy storage. Some examples are topics such as the development, analysis, and implementation of novel batteries; phase-change materials and their applications; energy-systems integration; life-cycle analysis of energy-storage systems; the integration of energy-storage systems in sustainable buildings; pumped-hydro energy storage; energy storage and electrical vehicles; fuel cells; hydrogen and methane as energy carriers; power-to-gas or other forms of energy storage in chemical compounds; information management; financial and economic analysis of energy storage systems; smart grids and energy systems; and energy policy; among others.

Dr. Nídia Caetano
Dr. Danny Sutanto
Dr. António A. Martins
Dr. Hooman Farzaneh
Dr. Meisam Tabatabaei
Dr. Carlos Felgueiras
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • battery design and project 
  • biofuels as liquid carriers of energy 
  • distributed generation 
  • energy policy 
  • energy storage and transportation 
  • energy storage integration in renewable energy systems 
  • energy storage systems 
  • energy systems integration 
  • fuel cells 
  • hydrogen or methane as energy carriers 
  • information management 
  • information management, financial and economic analysis of energy storage systems 
  • integration of storage energy storage systems in sustainable buildings 
  • life cycle analysis of energy storage systems 
  • novel batteries 
  • novel energy sources 
  • optimization 
  • phase change materials 
  • pumped-hydro energy storage
  • PV and energy storage systems 
  • smart grids and energy systems 
  • thermal energy storage

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 4246 KiB  
Article
Development of Nanosized Mn3O4-Co3O4 on Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes for Cathode Catalyst in Urea Fuel Cell
by Thi Ngoc Tuyen Pham and Young Soo Yoon
Energies 2020, 13(9), 2322; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13092322 - 07 May 2020
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2546
Abstract
Double-oxide Mn3O4-Co3O4 nanoparticles were synthesized and anchored on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) via a single-step solvothermal method. The largest specific area (99.82 m2g−1) of the catalyst was confirmed via a nitrogen adsorption [...] Read more.
Double-oxide Mn3O4-Co3O4 nanoparticles were synthesized and anchored on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) via a single-step solvothermal method. The largest specific area (99.82 m2g−1) of the catalyst was confirmed via a nitrogen adsorption isotherm. Furthermore, the uniform coating of the Mn3O4-Co3O4 nanoparticles on the surface of the MWCNTs was observed via scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy; the uniform coating provided an effective transport pathway during the electrocatalytic activities. The rotating disk electrode and rotating ring disk electrode measurements indicated that the electron transfer number was 3.96 and the evolution of H2O2 was 2%. In addition, the Mn3O4-Co3O4/MWCNT catalyst did not undergo urea poisoning and remained stable in an alkaline solution. Conversely, commercial Pt/C could not withstand urea poisoning for long. The performance cell achieved a power density of 0.4226 mW cm−2 at 50 °C. Therefore, Mn3O4-Co3O4/MWCNT is an efficient and inexpensive noble-metal-free cathodic catalyst for direct urea fuel cells. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Storage: From Chemicals to Materials and More)
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14 pages, 3478 KiB  
Article
Design of a Hybrid Renewable Energy System Based on Supercritical Water Gasification of Biomass for Off-Grid Power Supply in Fukushima
by Hooman Farzaneh
Energies 2019, 12(14), 2708; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12142708 - 15 Jul 2019
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4324
Abstract
This paper proposes an innovative hydrogen-based hybrid renewable energy system (HRES), which can be used to provide electricity, heat, hydrogen, and water to the small community in remote areas. The HRES introduced in this study is based on the integration of solar power [...] Read more.
This paper proposes an innovative hydrogen-based hybrid renewable energy system (HRES), which can be used to provide electricity, heat, hydrogen, and water to the small community in remote areas. The HRES introduced in this study is based on the integration of solar power generation, hydrogen generation from supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of wet biomass feedstock, hydrogen generation from solar water electrolysis, and a fuel cell to convert hydrogen to electricity and heat. The wet biomass feedstock contains aqueous sludge, kitchen waste, and organic wastewater. A simulation model is designed and used to investigate the control strategy for the hydrogen and electricity management through detailed size estimation of the system to meet the load requirements of a selected household area, including ten detached houses in a subject district around the Shinchi station located in Shinchi-machi, Fukushima prefecture, Japan. As indicated by results, the proposed HRES can generate about 47.3 MWh of electricity and about 2.6 ton of hydrogen per annum, using the annual wet biomass consumption of 98 tons, with a Levelized Cost of Energy (electricity and heat) of the system at 0.38 $/kWh. The implementation of the proposed HRES in the selected residential area has GHG emissions reduction potential of about 21 tons of CO2-eq per year. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Storage: From Chemicals to Materials and More)
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9 pages, 1242 KiB  
Article
Energy Storage Analysis of UIO-66 and Water Mixed Nanofluids: An Experimental and Theoretical Study
by Yingjie Zhou, Qibin Li and Qiang Wang
Energies 2019, 12(13), 2521; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12132521 - 30 Jun 2019
Cited by 43 | Viewed by 2932
Abstract
The thermal energy storage properties of a working fluid can be modified by the exothermic and endothermic adsorption and desorption of fluid molecules in the micro/nanoporous materials. In this study, thermogravimetric (TG) analysis experiments and molecular simulations (molecular dynamics, MD, and grand canonical [...] Read more.
The thermal energy storage properties of a working fluid can be modified by the exothermic and endothermic adsorption and desorption of fluid molecules in the micro/nanoporous materials. In this study, thermogravimetric (TG) analysis experiments and molecular simulations (molecular dynamics, MD, and grand canonical Monte Carlo, GCMC) were employed to examine the thermal energy storage properties of the UIO-66 metal organic framework material, UIO-66/H2O nanofluids and pure water. Our results showed that the molecular simulation calculations were, in principle, consistent with the obtained experimental data. The thermal energy storage performance of UIO-66/H2O nanofluids was enhanced with the increase in the UIO-66 mass fraction. In addition, the differences between the simulation calculations and experimental results could be mainly ascribed to the different structures of UIO-66 and the evaporation of fluid samples. Furthermore, this work indicated that molecular simulations contributed to developing novel working pairs of metal organic heat carriers (MOHCs). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Storage: From Chemicals to Materials and More)
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14 pages, 7311 KiB  
Article
Synthesis of LiNi0.85Co0.14Al0.01O2 Cathode Material and its Performance in an NCA/Graphite Full-Battery
by Cornelius Satria Yudha, Soraya Ulfa Muzayanha, Hendri Widiyandari, Ferry Iskandar, Wahyudi Sutopo and Agus Purwanto
Energies 2019, 12(10), 1886; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12101886 - 17 May 2019
Cited by 52 | Viewed by 6072
Abstract
Nickel-rich cathode material, NCA (85:14:1), is successfully synthesized using two different, simple and economical batch methods, i.e., hydroxide co-precipitation (NCA-CP) and the hydroxides solid state reaction method (NCA-SS), followed by heat treatments. Based on the FTIR spectra, all precursor samples exhibit two functional [...] Read more.
Nickel-rich cathode material, NCA (85:14:1), is successfully synthesized using two different, simple and economical batch methods, i.e., hydroxide co-precipitation (NCA-CP) and the hydroxides solid state reaction method (NCA-SS), followed by heat treatments. Based on the FTIR spectra, all precursor samples exhibit two functional groups of hydroxide and carbonate. The XRD patterns of NCA-CP and NCA-SS show a hexagonal layered structure (space group: R_3m), with no impurities detected. Based on the SEM images, the micro-sized particles exhibit a sphere-like shape with aggregates. The electrochemical performances of the samples were tested in a 18650-type full-cell battery using artificial graphite as the counter anode at the voltage range of 2.7–4.25 V. All samples have similar characteristics and electrochemical performances that are comparable to the commercial NCA battery, despite going through different synthesis routes. In conclusion, the overall results are considered good and have the potential to be adapted for commercialization. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Storage: From Chemicals to Materials and More)
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