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Thermally Driven Renewable Energy Technologies
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Thermally Driven Renewable Energy Technologies

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2024) | Viewed by 5420

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Sylwia Polesek-Karczewska

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
The Szewalski Institute of Fluid Flow Machinery, Polish Academy of Sciences, 80-231 Gdańsk, Poland
Interests: thermodynamics; porous media; heat and mass transfer; reactive flows; renewable energy; conversion of solid organics; modeling and simulation; design calculations of thermal devices; high-temperature heat exchangers; analysis and optimization of energy systems
Dr. Izabela Wardach-Święcicka

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
The Szewalski Institute of Fluid Flow Machinery, Polish Academy of Sciences, 80-231 Gdańsk, Poland
Interests: numerical modeling of thermal treatment of solid fuels; CFD; coupled lagrangian-eulerian methods; combustion; gasification; pyrolysis; equilibrium gas mixture computations; heat and mass transfer; reactive flows; intensification of heat transfer; porous media

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The entire world faces an energy crisis and negative environmental effects related to the excessive use of fossil fuels. Investments in renewable energy development, in addition to searching for the possibilities of reducing energy consumption, have become an urgent necessity. Heat exchange is the operation basis of heat supply systems and combined heat and power generation systems, based on biomass, solar and ground, or air, energy, and utilizing waste heat. The overall efficiency of such systems is therefore to a large extent a question of the effectiveness of heat transfer equipment that are their key elements, such as solar collectors, boilers, condensers, evaporators, regenerators, etc. The use of various working fluids, as well as the utilization of low-grade biomass waste fuels, drives the studies on heat transfer enhancement and the improvement of working fluid thermal properties but also entails focusing on the technical aspects related to thermomechanical and chemical resistance and protection of heat exchange surface, and thus, the maintenance and lifetime of the devices. In addition, the sustainable utilization of locally available sources, which would allow for maximizing the total percentage of renewables in the energy market, should be supported by optimizing energy use. This has spurred increased interest in short- and long-term thermal storage systems as vital to the development of effective integrated “green” technologies of heat and power generation. The proposed thermal energy storage solutions make use of, for instance, porous or phase change materials.

Research in the area of thermally driven renewable energy technologies, therefore, involves a wide spectrum of phenomena such as the different modes of heat transfer, i.e., conduction, convection and radiation, liquid–solid heat exchange, and phase transitions.                                                      

The objective of this Special Issue is to outline heat transfer-related issues which are of importance to novel concepts and progress in today’s renewable energy technologies, both low- and high-temperature ones, and contributing to their efficiency and reliability. All types of works are welcome, including mathematical modeling, simulation, and experimental studies, as well as review works. The topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Heating and cooling;
  • Heat transfer intensification;
  • Low- and high-temperature heat exchangers;
  • Solar collectors;
  • Heat pumps;
  • Low-emission biomass burners/furnaces;
  • Integrated systems;
  • Combined systems;
  • Thermal energy storage;
  • Waste heat utilization.

Dr. Sylwia Polesek-Karczewska
Dr. Izabela Wardach-Święcicka
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. Sustainability 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 2400 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

  • heat exchangers
  • boilers
  • solar collectors
  • thermal energy storage
  • green energy
  • heat transfer enhancement
  • thermal efficiency
  • phase change
  • biogenic fuels
  • computational fluid dynamics
  • experimental
  • design
  • optimization

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 2566 KiB  
Article
Predicting the Performance of a Helically Coiled Heat Exchanger for Heat Recovery from a Waste Biomass Incineration System
by Izabela Wardach-Świȩcicka, Sylwia Polesek-Karczewska and Adam Da̧browski
Sustainability 2025, 17(2), 759; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17020759 - 19 Jan 2025
Viewed by 576
Abstract
Nowadays, with increasing concerns about the environment and energy security, efforts have intensified to develop effective energy generation technologies based on renewable sources that align with the principles of sustainable growth. In response to these demands, biomass-fueled furnaces have become essential components of [...] Read more.
Nowadays, with increasing concerns about the environment and energy security, efforts have intensified to develop effective energy generation technologies based on renewable sources that align with the principles of sustainable growth. In response to these demands, biomass-fueled furnaces have become essential components of modern combined heat and power generation systems. This work aims to predict the thermal performance of a helically coiled multi-tube heat exchanger designed to recover heat from waste biomass incineration flue gases. The working fluid used is thermal oil. The work focuses on determining the thermal output of a heat exchanger for prescribed design parameters, including the thermal parameters of cooling oil and the temperature difference of flue gas, and the geometrical details. A novel in-house stationary lumped multi-section model, utilizing the iterative calculation method, was developed, allowing fast predictions of the operation parameters of helically coiled multi-tube type heat exchangers. Two different configurations of the exchanger, three-pipe (case I) and four-pipe (case II), were considered. The thermal output obtained from calculations for case I showed a satisfactory convergence with the value based on the measurement data, at about 6%. Once validated, the model was used to determine the required heat exchange surface area of a four-pipe heat exchanger of larger design heat output (2.2 MW) and assumed tube dimensions and configurations. The accuracy of the heat exchanger capacity prediction was below 12%, proving the developed calculation tool to be reliable for design and optimization purposes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermally Driven Renewable Energy Technologies)
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15 pages, 1594 KiB  
Article
2D Model of a Biomass Single Particle Pyrolysis—Analysis of the Influence of Fiber Orientation on the Thermal Decomposition Process
by Paulina Hercel, Atahan Orhon, Michał Jóźwik and Dariusz Kardaś
Sustainability 2025, 17(1), 279; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17010279 - 2 Jan 2025
Viewed by 663
Abstract
Understanding the influence of heat transfer on the pyrolysis process is crucial for optimizing industrial biofuel production processes. While numerous scientific studies focus on experimental investigations of pyrolysis using laboratory-scale devices, many neglect the essential role of thermal energy in initiating and controlling [...] Read more.
Understanding the influence of heat transfer on the pyrolysis process is crucial for optimizing industrial biofuel production processes. While numerous scientific studies focus on experimental investigations of pyrolysis using laboratory-scale devices, many neglect the essential role of thermal energy in initiating and controlling thermal decomposition processes. This study presents a transient two-dimensional numerical model of biomass single-particle pyrolysis, which includes the energy balance, mass conservation equations and pyrolysis gas pressure and velocity equations. The model employs explicit numerical methods to manage the high computational demands of 2D transient simulations, but is successfully validated with the use of experimental data found in the literature. The model reflects the heterogeneous structure of wood by using different thermal conductivity coefficients depending on the wooden fibers’ orientation. The results demonstrate the impact of fiber orientation on the heat transfer and thermal decomposition processes. The anisotropic properties of wood led to varied temperature fields and pyrolysis decomposition stages, aligning well with experimental data, thus validating the model’s accuracy. The proposed approach can provide a better understanding and lead to improvement in biofuel production processes, enabling more efficient and controlled conversion of biomass into fuel. By optimizing the pyrolysis process, it contributes to the development of sustainable energy preservation and regeneration methods, supporting a shift towards more sustainable fuel production patterns using renewable biomass resources like wood. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermally Driven Renewable Energy Technologies)
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19 pages, 2313 KiB  
Article
Theoretical Prediction of the Number of Bénard Cells in Low-Porosity Cylindrical/Rectangular Enclosures Saturated by a Fast Chemically Reacting Fluid
by Kanakapura M. Lakshmi, Laura M. Pérez, Pradeep G. Siddheshwar and David Laroze
Sustainability 2023, 15(15), 11999; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151511999 - 4 Aug 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1158
Abstract
Many applications including chemical engineering and meteorology require the study of a chemically driven convection in cylindrical, as well as rectangular enclosures. The present paper reports a unified analysis of a chemically driven convection in densely packed porous cylindrical/rectangular enclosures saturated by a [...] Read more.
Many applications including chemical engineering and meteorology require the study of a chemically driven convection in cylindrical, as well as rectangular enclosures. The present paper reports a unified analysis of a chemically driven convection in densely packed porous cylindrical/rectangular enclosures saturated by a chemically reactive binary fluid mixture. Employing the degeneracy technique and the single-term Galerkin method involving Bessel functions in a linear stability analysis, an analytical expression for the critical Rayleigh number, Rac, was obtained. An analytical expression for the number of cells that manifest in a given enclosure, at the onset of convection, was derived from Rac. The connection between the stabilizing and destabilizing effects of various parameters and the size or the number of Bénard cells that manifest are described in detail. The results depicted that the chemical parameters related to the heat of reaction destabilize and the parameter depending inversely on the rate of the chemical reaction stabilizes the system. In the latter case, a greater number of smaller cells were formed in the system compared to the former case. Hence, we concluded that the chemically reactive fluid advances the onset of convection compared to the chemically non-reactive fluid. The results of a similar problem in rectangular enclosures of infinite horizontal extent and chemically non-reactive liquid-saturated porous medium were recovered as limiting cases. Thus, the present model presents a unified analysis of six individual problems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermally Driven Renewable Energy Technologies)
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21 pages, 6483 KiB  
Article
Thermo-Hydraulic Performance Analysis of Fe3O4-Water Nanofluid-Based Flat-Plate Solar Collectors
by Mehak Shafiq, Muhammad Farooq, Waqas Javed, George Loumakis and Don McGlinchey
Sustainability 2023, 15(6), 4704; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15064704 - 7 Mar 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2215
Abstract
A cost-effective alternative for lowering carbon emissions from building heating is the use of flat-plate solar collectors (FPSCs). However, low thermal efficiency is a significant barrier to their effective implementation. Favorable nanofluids’ thermophysical properties have the potential to increase FPSCs’ effectiveness. Accordingly, this [...] Read more.
A cost-effective alternative for lowering carbon emissions from building heating is the use of flat-plate solar collectors (FPSCs). However, low thermal efficiency is a significant barrier to their effective implementation. Favorable nanofluids’ thermophysical properties have the potential to increase FPSCs’ effectiveness. Accordingly, this study evaluates the performance of an FPSC operating with Fe3O4-water nanofluid in terms of its thermo-hydraulic characteristics with operating parameters ranging from 303 to 333 K for the collector inlet temperature, 0.0167 to 0.05 kg/s for the mass flow rate, and 0.1 to 2% for nanoparticles’ volume fraction, respectively. The numerical findings demonstrated that under identical operating conditions, increasing the volume fraction up to 2% resulted in an improvement of 4.28% and 8.90% in energy and energy efficiency, respectively. However, a 13.51% and 7.93% rise in the friction factor and pressure drop, respectively, have also been observed. As a result, the performance index (PI) criteria were used to determine the optimal volume fraction (0.5%) of Fe3O4 nanoparticles, which enhanced the convective heat transfer, exergy efficiency, and energy efficiency by 12.90%, 4.33%, and 2.64%, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermally Driven Renewable Energy Technologies)
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