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This article presents the results of an experimental study evaluating the performance of a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) using dairy biogas as a fuel source. Dairy biogas, a renewable byproduct of dairy farming, was compared with hydrogen in terms of operational efficiency. The investigation focuses on the performance parameters and efficiency metrics of MCFCs when powered by dairy biogas, relative to natural gas and hydrogen. The results demonstrate that while dairy biogas can power MCFCs, its efficiency and fuel utilization rates are lower than those of conventional fuels. This study contributes to an understanding of alternative, sustainable fuel sources for MCFC operations. During the study, the performance parameters of dairy biogas were compared with hydrogen, which served as a benchmark fuel. It was observed that in comparison with natural gas, commonly used as a fuel, dairy biogas showed lower efficiency rates and reduced fuel‐utilization factors. This suggests that although dairy biogas can be used as a fuel source for MCFCs, its effectiveness might not be on par with traditional fuels like natural gas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper was to study the sCO2 cycle as a waste heat recovery system for a 180 kW biogas engine. The research methodology adopted was numerical simulations through two models built in different programs: Aspen HYSYS and GT Suite. The models were used to optimize the design and thermodynamic parameters of a CO2 cycle in terms of system power, system efficiency, expander, and compressor efficiency. Depending on the objective function, the sCO2 cycle could provide additional power ranging from 27.9 to 11.3 kW. Based on the calculation performed, "Recuperated cycle at maximum power" was selected for further investigation. The off-design analysis of the system revealed the optimum operating point. The authors designed the preliminary dimensions of the turbomachinery, i.e., the rotor dimension is 16 mm, which will rotate at 100,000 rpm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presented delivers the proof for one of the possible solutions to the so-called medium-temperature gap—the lack of electrolytic systems able to efficiently work in a temperature range spanning from 200 to 450 °C. Regardless of the progress made in this field, the commercially available systems are still operating either at close to ambient temperatures, where hydrogen purity requirements are a significant limit, or above ca. 600 °C, where they suffer from increased corrosion and excessive thermal stresses occurring during startup and shutdown. Alkali metal orthoborates (M3BO3 M = Li, Na, K, or the mixture of these), in contrast to commercially used tetra-(M2B4O7) and meta-(MBO2) borates of these metals, are compounds with relatively poorly understood structure and physicochemical properties. The possibility of their application as an electrolyte in a fuel cell is a relatively new idea and has been preliminary reported. Therefore, an extended phase-focused analysis of the materials applied was needed to re-optimize both the synthetic strategy and the application route. Results of PXRD and FT-IR investigations showed, on the one hand, a complicated multi-phase structure, including the main orthoborate phase, as well as the presence of additional borate-based phases, including boric oxoacid. On the other hand, DTA tests proved not only that their melting temperatures are lower than these characteristics for the tetra- and meta-counterparts, but also that cation mixing leads to a subsequent decrease in this important functional parameter of the materials studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with a thermal energy storage system in the form of a water tank with a thermocline. The well-known thermocline phenomenon is modeled using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). However, the reservoir model proposed in this article is zero-dimensional. This is due to the fact that the aim of this article is to build a mathematical model that will be more useful in mathematical models of complex energy systems in which a hot water tank is one of many elements of the system. In such a zero-dimensional mathematical model, the hot water tank will be modeled using equations describing heat transfer, and the thermocline itself will be treated as a heat transfer surface with known dimensions and heat transfer coefficient. A novelty of this paper is that it addresses heat loss across the thermocline as defined in this manner. A CFD model of a thermal storage tank is created, validated with available experimental data, and used to obtain the heat transfer coefficient U. The resulting value is then analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively and the changes in the thickness of the thermocline are accounted for in the equation. The results from this groundbreaking work can be used to analyze heat storage in the form of thermocline water tanks at the level of system modeling, e.g., for the purpose of configuring the structure of other devices and control systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the model of the novel concept liquid piston engine, which is designed to convert low-grade waste heat into electricity. The proposed dynamic oriented model is implemented in Aspen Hysys that enables simulations dynamic simulation of various working agents. The simulation results were verified with experimental data obtained from the research installation. The proposed model demonstrated relatively small discrepancies with respect to experimental research, hence it could be used as a tool for research on optimization of an innovative power plant operation, i.e. various working agents, various operating pressures.

The paper presents the influence of selected components parameters on the performance of supercritical carbon dioxide power unit. For this analysis mathematical model of supercritical recompression Brayton cycle was created. The analysis took into consideration changes in the net cycle power and efficiency for different compressor inlet temperatures. The results were obtained for a fixed minimum pressure of 7.4 MPa and fixed recompression split ratio. The studies conducted in this paper included also consideration of sensitivity of the cycle efficiency to a change in recuperators heat transfer area. In order to determine how each recuperator influences the cycle performance, an analysis of efficiency dependence on the recuperators area was made. Another parameters that were investigated are to a change in turbine and compressors isentropic efficiency and their influence on the cycle efficiency. In the reference cycle, isentropic efficiencies were set up as 88% for both the main and recompression compressor, and 90% for the turbine. Since isentropic efficiency is a sort of measure of broadly defined quality of a turbine or compressor, including airfoil shape, sealing, etc., it may be a significant cost factor that should be considered during cycle design. Therefore, a sensitivity analysis of cycle efficiency to both compressors and turbine isentropic efficiencies was conducted.

The paper aims to compare the models of working fluids against experimental data for carbon dioxide close to its critical conditions. Fortunately, most of the work is already done and published where the authors compared the models based on the equation of the state (EoS). There are a few other models which were not investigated, thus we would like to add a few new results here and focus only on near-critical properties where the biggest deviation between experimental and calculated properties can be observed. The area of interest was pressure range of 7.39 – 20 MPa and temperature range of 304-340 K just above fluid critical point (7.39 MPa, 304.25 K). Model validation was performed for density and heat capacity as one of the most important parameters in preliminary cycle analysis.

This paper presents models of three elements: heat exchanger, compressor and expander dedicated to supercritical CO2 cycles (Brayton). The models are built using Ebsilon software and validated against experimental data from available literature. Radial turbomachinery and thin plate heat exchangers were used to meet the demands of the relatively compact design of the S-CO2 cycle elements. It seems that there are no general relationships for the turbomachinery and real characteristics need to be used for constructing the models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, two types of high temperature electrolyzers (O=SOE and H+SOE) were investigated for hydrogen generation in relation to nuclear power plant operations. The analysis encompasses the thermal integration of proton and ion conducting solid oxide electrolyzers, which are fed with steam generated in the nuclear plant. Under consideration in the study was the steam turbine cycle of an AP1000 nuclear power plant. The main parameters of electrolysis were tailored to match the typical operating temperature of the electrolyzers, and the water utilization factor was set at the same value for the two technologies under consideration. There are some advantages to applying high temperature electrolysis to the deaerator steam feed: first, there is almost no modification of the nuclear steam turbine cycle; second, flexibility of the nuclear power plant rises by 20% with almost constant thermal load of the nuclear reactor; and third, high pressure hydrogen is obtained for commercial purposes. The analysis concludes that hydrogen can be produced in electrolyzers integrated with nuclear plants at an energy cost of 38.83 and 37.55 kWh kg H2 −1 for protonic and ionic solid oxide electrolyzers, respectively. • Study addressed the coupling of solid oxide electrolysers with nuclear plant. • Oxygen ion and proton conducting solid oxide electrolyzers were modelled. • Analysis of hydrogen generation using high temperature electrolysis was performed. • Electric power demand for producing hydrogen in the cycle was computed. • Values of 38.83 and 37.55 kWh/kg H 2 were found for H+ and O= SOE, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This article shows the teaching processes of artificial neural networks that are used to model the molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC). Researchers model MCFCs to address a variety of issues across a range of complexities, from simply gauging the effect of temperature through to a complete model with 14 input parameters. The architecture of the model is a triple layer network with one hidden layer containing three neurons. The activation function used for the hidden layer was a hyperbolic tangent, with the last layer being based on linear function. We produced various network configurations, mostly networks containing one hidden layer. Models map the work of a real fuel cell with an average error in the range of 2.4% to 4.6%. The model we created guided the optimization of the thermal‐flow and construction parameters of the MCFC. Commercially available software was used to build the model and optimize the operating parameters. The selected objective functions were the efficiency of electricity production and the power density obtained from the cell's surface. The results obtained serve as pointers for possible changes in fuel cell operation and could lead to some structural changes being made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]