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• A novel dynamic graph attention network is proposed for EEG emotion recognition. • The high accuracy can be obtained from the DGAT model in EEG emotion recognition. • The channel connectivity can reflect the synergistic relationships within the brain. Deep learning classification models based on electroencephalogram (EEG) emotion recognition have demonstrated considerable proficiency in the categorization of emotional states. However, these models have limitations in their capability to analyze the active states and cooperative relationships among distinct brain regions. This study proposes a dynamic graph attention network (DGAT) for EEG emotion recognition, which learns the features of each channel and leverages multiple-head self-attention mechanisms to capture non-Euclidean relationships between channels. Then, we use differential entropy features of emotions signals on the SJTU emotion EEG dataset (SEED). The DGAT model achieved improved subject-dependent and cross-subject classification accuracy compared to previous models. Moreover, ablation studies show that the channel weight matrix(CWM) and appropriate hyper-parameters can improve the performance of the DGAT model significantly. Furthermore, by conducting interpretable analysis of the new connections and electrode weights learned by the model, we find that these connection weight relationships reflect a certain degree of coordination within the brain for EEG-based emotion recognition. These findings provide a new method for EEG emotion recognition and highlights the potential for using deep learning models to analyze the active state and synergistic relationships among brain regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been no studies on laparoscopic anatomical hemihepatectomy guided by the middle hepatic vein combined with transhepatic duct lithotripsy for the treatment of complex hemihepatolithiasis. This study aimed to investigate the safety and efficacy of laparoscopic anatomical hemihepatectomy guided by the middle hepatic vein combined with transhepatic duct lithotomy to treat complex hemihepatolithiasis. The clinical data for patients who underwent laparoscopic anatomical hemihepatectomy for complex intrahepatic bile duct stones with or without common bile duct stones from January 2016 to June 2020 were prospectively collected. Patients were divided into 2 groups according to surgical approach: laparoscopic anatomical hemihepatectomy guided by the middle hepatic vein (middle hepatic vein group) or laparoscopic anatomical hemihepatectomy not guided by the middle hepatic vein (nonmiddle hepatic vein group). The safety and short-term and long-term efficacy outcomes of the 2 groups were compared with 1:1 propensity score matching. With only a slightly longer operative time (P =.006), the initial and final stone residual rates in the middle hepatic vein group (n = 70) were significantly lower than those in the nonmiddle hepatic vein group (n = 70) (P =.002, P =.009). The bile leakage rate and stone recurrence rate were also significantly lower (P =.001, P =.001). Laparoscopic anatomical hemihepatectomy guided by the middle hepatic vein is safe and effective for treating intrahepatic bile duct stones and can decrease the stone residual rate, reduce the bile leakage rate and stone recurrence rate, and accelerate early recovery. However, owing to the complicated technical requirements for surgeons and anesthesiologists, use of the procedure is limited to large and experienced medical centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Food and drink processing industries are extremely large consumers of thermal energy as well as bio-wastes producers. The utilisation of bio-wastes for energy recovery appears to be a good opportunity to improve the overall efficiency of process industries. In this study, waste generation, management and energy auditing of a micro-brewery located in the north east of England is investigated. Fermented grains and hops are disposed as organic wastes after the production process. Hence, this study focuses on recovery of energy from these wastes through anaerobic digestion process. Experimental work was carried out in the laboratory for the wastes characterisation. The waste samples are then anaerobically digested at 55 ⁰C and 35 ⁰C with a 5L laboratory scale continuous stirred reactor using 5 gVSL-1 and 25 days organic loading rates and hydraulic retention times respectively. Further to the experimental work, simulations were completed to evaluate the feasibility of the process. ASPEN plus simulation software was used to carry out the simulations using a novel approach for AD which is based on the ADM1 model. The experimental results showed that biogas can be produced at mesophilic and thermophilic conditions: 3.0 and 2.6 litres per day respectively. At thermophilic conditions, the methane content is 65 % while at mesophilic conditions, it is 55%. It is also found that the values of the final biogas production from the simulation were similar to the ones obtained in the experiments (-6.85%). However, the model would need further modifications to be able to accurately predict the biogas compositions. The result shows that the thermophilic process is able to fuel 126.01 kW boiler while mesophilic process can power 76.48kW boiler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study investigated the thermal and indoor environmental performance of an office building in the northeast of England. The building was built using natural stone and glass; internally the large floor plates are bordered and penetrated by open voids that ventilate the building and provide exceptional day lighting. A computational model for this building was set up using Design Builder software. The model is validated using on-site monitoring data and then it is used to predict and evaluate the performance of the building. It is found that the U-value of glass and natural stone is relatively high that caused high energy consumption. To achieve the performance recommended by passive house standard, two scenarios are proposed and simulated. It is found that when the window size is reduced and low U-value wall materials used, the energy consumption for heating can be reduced by 33.9% for Scenario 1 and 45.7% for Scenario 2 in a year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Propose a GASF-LDA feature enhancement method for sEMG feature processing. • This method uses GASF to expand features and dig deeper into potential feature information. • The adaptive principle is proposed to effectively improve the convergence and search ability of ABC algorithm. • This method uses improved ABC algorithm optimizing SVM, improves the accuracy of sEMG-based gesture recognition. The surface EMG signal (sEMG) is the potential signal produced by human muscle movement, which is closely related to the movement pattern of the limb and widely used in the field of gesture recognition. However, most of existing methods suffer from insufficient adaptability and low recognition accuracy, in order to achieve rapid and accurate gesture recognition from sEMG signals, a novel sEMG-based gesture recognition method is proposed involving feature enhancement based on gramian angular summation field-linear discriminant analysis (GASF-LDA) and improved support vector machine. Specially, feature enhancement is implemented for the extracted features by GASF-LDA algorithm. Additionally, an adaptive principle based on the artificial bee colony algorithm is proposed to optimize the support vector machine for sEMG-based gesture recognition. As a result, for the eight-classification study of sEMG signals, the combination of feature enhancement and classifier optimization achieved an average accuracy of 97.54 ± 1.03 %. The experimental results show that the method has high classification accuracy and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research experimentally investigated the impact of adding Carbon Coated Nickel and Carbon Coated Aluminium on the sorption performance of conventional Strontium Chloride-Natural Expanded Graphite (SrCl 2 -NEG) chemisorption composite. In order to evenly distribute Nano particles into the material, manufacture methodology is developed and reported. In this study, experiments were set for testing the sorption performance of applying novel Ni/Al-additive adsorbent with the working fluid of ammonia. Compared with that of SrCl 2 -NEG, Ni-additive adsorbent improves the comprehensive heat and mass transfer performance as it reacted faster in both adsorption tests and low temperature desorption tests. By adopting Carbon coated Ni into the chemisorption composite, the overall sorption cycle time and require relatively lower energy for sorption cycles. While Al-additive adsorbent only improves the reaction speed in low temperature desorption tests, and may be applied in negative catalyser for its bad behaviour in adsorption performance tests. This paper reveals that adding Carbon Coated Nickel into conventional chemisorption composite would provide a potential way for improving the overall efficiency of an adsorption system and reducing the overall sorption cycle time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ORC (organic Rankine cycle) technology is promising in industry for utilizing low-grade heat to generate electricity. It is acknowledged that in an internal combustion engine, only a small amount of primary fuel energy can be effectively used for the power generation, and the other part of the energy lost through exhaust gas, cooling of elements and overcoming friction. The heat in exhaust gas and cooling system (jacket water) can be used as a heat source to drive ORC units for power generation. In this way, the energy lost can be recovered to generate extra power. In this study, Ricardo Wave software was used to investigate the amount of waste heat available from a 1-cylinder diesel engine and THERMOLIB toolbox in SIMULINK was used to simulate and evaluate the performance of a small ORC unit designed for the application. The simulation results from the engine and ORC models were validated against experimental data from other researchers. Two different heating methods to the ORC were used: a) directly driven by the exhaust gas and jacket water (EG-JW); b) thermal oil (TO) was used to collect the waste heat from the engine exhaust gas; the heated thermal oil together with jacket water were then used to drive the ORC. It was found that the performance of the ORC was improved and it was more stable when using TO under different engine running conditions than that directly driven by EG-JW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buildings consumed 40% of the world’s primary energy consumption. In hot climate countries, more than 50% of building’s energy was spent on the cooling system. Aimed to reduce building’s cooling load in a tropical country, this study compares building’s construction configuration for two types of air-conditioned rooms in a high-rise office building. The two types of air-conditioned rooms are: (a) air conditioned rooms operating during office hours and (b) IT rooms and data centre with 24hours cooling. Six scenarios were compared using four building’s configurations (baseline, adding insulation, adding phase change material (PCM), and adding both insulation and phase change material) to evaluate the most efficient construction and cooling settings for both room types. It was found that for air conditioned rooms operating during office hours, adding PCM with melting point 29°C and force night time ventilation is the most effective in reducing cooling load. Meanwhile, for a room with 24hours cooling load, adding insulation material is the most efficient. PCM was only fully effective when night time ventilation was introduced which allows the PCM to discharge. High thermal conductivity walls have the potential to create a mould problem in the building (due to differences in moisture pressure at night time between the internal and external of the building) which can be eradicated by using night time ventilation or adding insulation to the wall. PCM installation reduced the sensible cooling load but not the latent cooling load. Hence, mechanical cooling or dehumidifier is still required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effects on engine performance and exhaust emissions using carbon coated aluminium (Al@C) nanoparticles as additives in palm oil methyl ester biodiesel. The nanoparticles were blended with the biodiesel fuel in the mass fractions of 30 ppm under ultrasonic mixing. A series of experimental tests have been conducted using a heavy-duty diesel engine test bench provided by Cummins. The influences of three kinds of biofuel, including biodiesel, biodiesel with ethanol, and biodiesel with ethanol and nanoparticles, have been studied in detail. The results show clearly that adding Al@C nanoparticles can reduce brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) remarkably with average of 10%. NOx and CO emission reduce significantly in nanoparticles fuel blends cases at about 12% and 9% respectively, comparing with neat biodiesel. However, total hydrocarbon compounds (THC) emission and emitted particle numbers increase with adding nanoparticles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The macroscopic characteristics of Hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), a renewable biodiesel, were investigated by both experimental and numerical approaches in this paper. The experiment on spray of 0.6ms injection duration was conducted in a constant volume vessel (CVV) at 1800 bar common rail pressure, 70 bar ambient pressure and 100℃ ambient temperature, and the numerical work with the Wave breakup model and RNG k-ε turbulence model was done on a corresponding 2D geometric model at the same condition. The results indicated that the spray tip penetration grew with a decreasing tip velocity and the cone angle increased gradually after a dramatic growth and slight drop. Moreover, the prediction of numerical method, when used in conjunction with experimental studies, was proven effective in elucidating the macroscopic characteristics of HVO spray. The error between the predicted spray tip penetration and the experimental one was no more than 4% except that within 0.2ms flow time after SOI. In addition, the predicted cone angle was in similar trend to the experimental one and the error was within 10% after 0.2 ms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel composite sorbents are developed. Strontium chloride (SrCl 2 ) is selected whereas expanded natural graphite and nanoparticle i.e. carbon coated nickel are integrated as the additive with different densities for the better heat transfer and sorption performance. Thermal properties such as thermal diffusivity and conductivity are investigated by the laser flash method. The sorption performance is tested by the unit which is especially designed. It is indicated that the highest thermal diffusivity could reach 2.242 mm 2 ·s -1 when the density is 1000 kg·m -3 and testing temperature is 20 °C. For different testing temperature and density, the thermal diffusivity range from 1.3 mm 2 ·s -1 to 2.242 mm 2 ·s -1 . Also worth noting that the highest thermal conductivity could reach 2.5 mm 2 ·s -1 for the environmental temperature. One paramount factor i.e. the global conversion rate of the novel composite SrCl 2 is compared and analyzed under different working conditions. It can be found that the higher desorption temperature results in the faster variation of the global conversion rate. In addition, It takes about 15 minutes and 40 minutes to finish the reaction SrCl 2 8-1 and 1-0 when the desorption temperature is 180 °C and 130 °C, respectively. For sorption process, it is indicated that the global conversion rate varies faster with the increase of the sorption temperature. When the global conversion is 0.7, it takes about 14 to 28 minutes when sorption temperature range from -5 °C to 15 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One third of the global food production ends up in the bins such that food waste now ranks third when placed amongst the world’s CO 2 emitters. Bulk of food waste occurs at the early stage of food value chain in the developing countries where many people ironically suffer from food insecurity. To reduce this trend, a biogas driven tri-generation system which synchronizes power generation with food drying and cold room storage is designed and analyzed in context of the current renewable energy policy of the Nigerian government. Using Aspen Plus simulator, market wastes from a rural community is analyzed for biogas generation. The biogas is subsequently used to fuel a 72kWe internal combustion engine which drives a generator to generate electricity. The recovered heat from the engine’s exhaust is used for drying and cooling of agricultural products while heat from the cooling jacket is used to maintain the anaerobic digestion process. The results from this study show that the system’s efficiency increases from 25.66% to 76.02% for electricity only and tri-generation respectively. The results also indicate that the system is able to provide electricity, drying energy requirements and postharvest cold storage for 322, 56, and 922 farming households respectively. This amounts to drying of 20.35MT, 2.313MT and 3.75MT of cassava tubers, maize and tomato respectively per household per year while 3.75MT of tomato is also cold stored. The results equally demonstrate that with the current electricity tariffs for remote areas being charged at USD 13.1/MWh and Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) of USD 122.48/MWh, the Net Present Value is positive regardless of FITs availability and the current banks’ lending rates. However, the payback period is sensitive to FITs and lending rates and varies between 2.1years to 7.19 years depending on the lending rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The building performance monitored over one year of a Conventional House and a Passive House in North East England is presented in this paper. These two houses which differ in building fabric, the type of ventilation and thermal storage, the use of different energy and residents’ occupancy result in distinct building energy performance and indoor air quality. According to the measurement data, the primary energy demand of the Conventional House and Passive House were 169.85 kWh/(m 2 a) and 64.11 kWh/(m 2 a) while the annual average indoor temperature of the two properties maintained at 17.7°C and 22.0°C, respectively. A simulation study was conducted by DesignBuilder software to improve the Conventional House’s energy and indoor environmental performance using passive retrofitting methods, aiming to reduce the primary energy demand, the space heating demand of the property and enhance its general indoor air environmental performance. The DesignBuilder models were validated by monitored data and used to predict the performance of the Conventional House after retrofitting, and then compared it with the Passive House. The results indicate the reduction of space heating demand is by about 80% compared to its current status. The findings showed that there was a huge potential for conventional house retrofitting using passive energy saving methods in northern England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trigeneration produces power, heat and cooling simultaneously. It utilises the waste heat from generator for heating and generating cooling. From previous studies, it is found that some part of the waste heat recovered by the trigeneration is not being used when it is in operation. It is therefore necessary to find a way to utilise the heat. Integrating an ORC (organic Rankine cycle) system into a micro trigeneration system is studied. The waste heat recovered by the trigeneration system is utilised by the ORC system to generate electrical power. An ORC model is set up in Matlab and a micro trigeneration system based a diesel engine generator in the laboratory at Newcastle University is used as the case study. R245fa is used as the working fluid. The result showed that the ORC system may generate 0.737 kW electrical power with 9.25% efficiency at the generator full-load operation point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dual-source chemisorption power generation system using scroll expander is proposed and studied to recover dual heat sources under various working conditions. The chemisorption power generation system mainly composes of two adsorption beds and two expansion machines for the purpose of recovering low grade heat energy such as solar energy and industrial waste heat into electricity. The performance evaluation of the system with Six Metal Chlorides-Ammonia working pairs and scroll expander as the expansion device has been conducted to identify the optimal operational conditions of the system. Results indicate MnCl 2 -SrCl 2 is the optimal working pair while the first heat source temperature is from 90 o C to 220 o C. NiCl 2 -SrCl 2 is suitable to be used when the first heat source temperature is higher than 220 o C. Considering about the specific energy and operational condition of the scroll expander, the optimal working pair of the system is achieved by MnCl 2 -SrCl 2 while the first heat source temperature from 180 to 200 o C and the second heat source temperature from 80 to 90 o C. The average specific energy of the system under the suggested conditions can be as high as 102 kJ/kg salts for Mode 1 and 85 kJ/kg salts for Mode 2 with the overall average thermal efficiency at 10%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simulation study to improve energy and indoor environmental performance of a rural house by retrofitting in Beijing of China is presented in this paper. This dwelling was retrofitted using passive energy saving methods and it aims to reduce the annual energy consumption, especially the energy used for household heating demands and to improve the indoor air temperature during the winter. Two main retrofitting methods were used for this case study: insulation was added to the envelope of the house, and the single glazing windows had been replaced by double glazing. The model of this rural house simulated by DesignBuilder software is validated by the actual energy consumption. The validated model is then used to evaluate and predict the future performance of this house. The findings of this study indicate the advantages of retrofitting a rural house by using passive methods: annual energy saving for heating is about 60% and the indoor temperature of the house can be improved dramatically compared to its original status. Moreover, the environmental impacts cause by the heating fuel source has been mitigated. The results showed the potential for rural house retrofitting using passive energy saving methods in northern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the design and investigation of a small scale Organic Rankine cycle using a targeted scroll expander to recover both coolant and exhaust energy from a diesel fuelled internal combustion engine. The designed system could potentially be used to recover both the heat source energy into electricity using simple control of the mass flow rate of the working fluid. Results indicated that under the optimal conditions this ORC system can generate 1 kW power under the full load operational condition of a 6.5 kW engine. Moreover, the corresponding rotation speed of the scroll expander is about 4000 rpm, which means the expander could be adapted with conventional generator to produce electricity at relatively reasonable cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, a smart grid using renewable energy and energy storage unit is studied. The system's storage units applies novel supercapacitor technologies to work with traditional batteries. This study aims at satisfying the dynamic demand of a household and evaluate the performance of the smart grid. The system design and the control strategy design is expressed in the paper combined with the discussion of the system's operation theory. The control panel of the system use SIEMENS S7-200 PLC as the core chipset. Digital software is an auxiliary tool for monitoring the system's operation process. The controlling method is divided into two situations, with renewable energy source and without renewable energy source, and both the operation processes are presented in detail in the results discussion part. After analysing the operation details of the system, the controlling strategy is proven to be useful for the operation of the smart grid system. Future work for the system is combining the electrical smart grid with other energy source. This system is potentially to be developed as electrical part of a multi energy system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports the development and experimental investigation on a novel chemisorption composite material by adding Carbon coated Ni into SrCl 2 -NEG. The manufacture processes on this novel material has been developed in order to control the evenly distribution of the Nano particles inside the composite. The sorption performance of the novel chemisorption composite using ammonia as the working fluid was experimentally tested and compared with the performance of conventional chemisorption composite without adding Carbon coated Ni. Results pointed out that compared with conventional chemisorption one (SrCl 2 /NEG) this novel developed composite requires less heat source energy but has relatively lower mass transfer performance. The overall efficiency of an adsorption system using this novel chemisorption composite as the adsorbent could be potentially improved and the overall cycle time can be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a sustainability assessment method which incorporating life cycle approach and sustainability theory. Northeast region of England is chosen as a case study. The assessment examines the sustainability of regional solar photovoltaic deployment in three categories: techno-economic, environmental and social impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A distributed electrical power system using renewable generations (RG) on an island was studied. The original system includes micro hydropower stations, wind turbines and solar PVs with a bank of batteries for storage of the extra power from the renewables; and two diesel generators were used as the back-up units. From the analysis of historic electricity generation and consumption data, it was found that the RG alone could not meet the total demand and the diesel generator(s) needed running occasionally in 8 months in one year. In order to make the electric power supply completely from renewables, one novel solution using hydrogen generated from extra renewable electricity to replace diesel as the fuel for the diesel generators was proposed, i.e. a sub-system of renewable hydrogen generation (RHG), which composed of extra wind turbines, a water electrolyser and a hydrogen storage tank, were added to the renewable system. A technical and economic performance evaluation of the RG system was carried out using HOMER software. The results showed that the RHG sub-system produced and stored enough hydrogen for the diesel generator(s) to generate electricity whenever needed. In this way, the power supply on the island will be completely from renewables and zero CO 2 emission without using diesel. The cost of electricity (COE) of the new system was £0.776 per kilowatt hour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For power generation systems, the expansion machine is one of the most crucial components. In this work, a scroll expander test rig has been constructed and tested to simulate the performance in a resorption cogeneration under similar working conditions. The relationship between the inlet pressure and the volume flow rate has been experimentally achieved and the volume ratio is around 2.80 under the tested conditions. A minimum start state to generate electricity from the scroll expander has been investigated, which is at least 145 kPa. The isentropic efficiency of the scroll expander is around 0.6. Meanwhile the electrical efficiency achieved by this system is around 0.35 and 0.40 under the supply pressure at 238.0 kPa and 333.5 kPa, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the rapid increase in price of resources, the role of energy management and utilisation has become significant in processing industry. Industries can be more competitive by increasing the energy efficiency and eliminating waste. In this research, an old-style paper plant situated in China has been selected for the case study. The purpose of the study is to test whether the energy usage is reasonable and to exploit the potential of waste as a resource for its production process. To do so, a huge data of the paper plant are obtained, and then based on these figures, a model has been established to find out the potential wastes and thermal energy loss of the process. The simulation results revealed that the mill's energy use is quite reasonable, however, findings found that there are still further possibility for organic waste to be reused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent researches and studies demonstrate that the need for sustainable buildings which do less impact on the environment is rising in the worldwide [1,2] . Not only the energy generator from energy supply side needs to be considered to build a sustainable building, but also the novel construction methods and materials from demand side will contribute to the energy saving. The aim of this study is to carry out an investigation of a property's energy consumption from the view of passive energy saving, and then use the results to determine the best energy saving plan. A field audit and the Design Builder software simulation of a detached house were carried out during this study. The results indicate that the simulation energy consumption (9.66MWh) is matching well with the actual energy usage (9.76MWh) and the property consumes less energy than national average (16.90MWh). From the study, it is found that the annual total household energy consumption reduced for about 33% than traditional construction materials and technology by using passive energy saving methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For power generation systems, the expansion machine is one of the most crucial components. In this work, a scroll expander test rig has been constructed and tested to simulate the performance in a resorption cogeneration under similar working conditions. The relationship between the inlet pressure and the volume flow rate has been experimentally achieved and the volume ratio is around 2.80 under the tested conditions. A minimum start state to generate electricity from the scroll expander has been investigated, which is at least 145 kPa. The isentropic efficiency of the scroll expander is around 0.6. Meanwhile the electrical efficiency achieved by this system is around 0.35 and 0.40 under the supply pressure at 238.0 kPa and 333.5 kPa, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the rapid increase in price of resources, the role of energy management and utilisation has become significant in processing industry. Industries can be more competitive by increasing the energy efficiency and eliminating waste. In this research, an old-style paper plant situated in China has been selected for the case study. The purpose of the study is to test whether the energy usage is reasonable and to exploit the potential of waste as a resource for its production process. To do so, a huge data of the paper plant are obtained, and then based on these figures, a model has been established to find out the potential wastes and thermal energy loss of the process. The simulation results revealed that the mill's energy use is quite reasonable, however, findings found that there are still further possibility for organic waste to be reused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent researches and studies demonstrate that the need for sustainable buildings which do less impact on the environment is rising in the worldwide [1,2] . Not only the energy generator from energy supply side needs to be considered to build a sustainable building, but also the novel construction methods and materials from demand side will contribute to the energy saving. The aim of this study is to carry out an investigation of a property's energy consumption from the view of passive energy saving, and then use the results to determine the best energy saving plan. A field audit and the Design Builder software simulation of a detached house were carried out during this study. The results indicate that the simulation energy consumption (9.66MWh) is matching well with the actual energy usage (9.76MWh) and the property consumes less energy than national average (16.90MWh). From the study, it is found that the annual total household energy consumption reduced for about 33% than traditional construction materials and technology by using passive energy saving methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a thermodynamic analysis and a numerical simulation of a heat pipe heat exchanger which recovers both sensible and latent heat from the exhaust gases of boiler with a temperature range from 450K to 600K. Compared with the conventional methods of preventing corrosion by avoiding acid dew point or using the anticorrosive material, a water spray is proposed in this work as an innovation to integrate with the heat pipe heat exchanger, which absorbs the corrosive gas such as SO 2 , SO 3 and NO x from the outlet of boiler. The comprehensive theoretical study has shown the convective heat transfer coefficient under wet condition is 1.5-3 times higher than that of dry condition and the optimal location of the water spray in the system has been identified. Meanwhile a the heat and mass transfer in a thirty-row heat pipe heat exchanger with different locations of a water spray has been established by the FLUENT to analyze the flow field and temperature gradient of the heat pipe heat exchanger. The overall analysis has proven that system efficiency of the boiler and the lifetime of heat exchanger can be effectively enhanced with the application of the water spray. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food processing industries are extremely large consumers of thermal energy as well as bio waste generation and there are huge opportunities to improve its utilization. In this study a medium scale spirit plant situated in China was audited. Based on the data obtained, energy and mass balances were performed in order to find the sources of thermal energy, the potential cost effective reduction, recovery and assess potential uses to lower the fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emission. Fermented grains are used for the spirit production and even though they are re utilised during the process at the end are disposed as biological waste consisting mainly of wet distillers grains. The feasibility of using the waste as fuel for direct combustion or co-combustion with coal for the steam generation was studied and evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]