School of Water, Energy and Environment (SWEE)

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Browsing School of Water, Energy and Environment (SWEE) by Publisher "American Institute of Physics"

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    Commercial development of bio-combustible fuels from hydrothermal liquefaction of waste using solar collectors
    (American Institute of Physics, 2018-11-08) Pearce, Matthew; Tonnellier, Xavier; Namrata, Sengar; Samson, Chris
    Current methods to improve the viability of microalgae based biofuel production depend on improved microalgae strains, biorefinery concepts and identification of higher value applications such as cosmetics and nutraceuticals. Despite such efforts, the energy inputs into the microalgae conversion process remain high. The technical approach presented is to design, deploy and field test an integrated set-up of Concentrated Solar Power and Hydrothermal Liquefaction systems to produce bio-oil and evaluate the production and conversion processes. Phycofeeds’ approach is to integrate CSP and HTL technologies into the conversion process to improve the energy efficiency and the economic case for scaling microalgae based biofuel production. Further sustainability enhancements are achieved by integrating wastewater feedstock and market integration of output by-products for the aquaculture feed industry. This paper presents the microalgae harvesting and HTL bio-oil formation analysis procedures on a pre-pilot field scale. Solar concentrating captors are described and theoretical values obtained prior to experimental work that will be carried out in India.
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    ItemOpen Access
    The design of dust barriers to reduce collector mirror soiling in CSP plants
    (American Institute of Physics, 2018-11-08) Sansom, Christopher L.; King, Peter; Fernandez-Garcia, Aranzazu; Almond, Heather; Kayani, Talib; Boujjat, Houssamme
    In this work we investigate, design, and evaluate a number of dust barrier designs that would be appropriate to reduce soiling of glass mirror solar collectors in the solar field of an existing CSP plant. The principal objective was to reduce the amount of soiling (and hence the amount of cleaning water consumed) by 50% in comparison with current cleaning procedures (considering particles of size >25 µm). “Fluent” CFD software was used to model of a range of potential dust barrier shapes, sizes, and porosities. Airflows and wind loadings were analyzed in this way. A number of potential designs were then taken forward for experimental validation. Initial validation involved wind tunnel evaluation of a small number of potential designs, using a new wind tunnel specifically designed and built for this project. Larger-scale outdoor validation was carried out both at Cranfield University in the UK and at CIEMAT-PSA (Plataforma Solar de Almeria) in Spain. Initial results were independent of location and barrier shape and showed that the percentage of particles that were stopped completely or travelled less than 1m beyond the barrier was in the range 45.8 ± 5%.