Applied Energy

Microalgae are promising natural resources for biofuels, chemical, food and feed products. Besides their economic potential, the environmental sustainability must be examined. Cultivation has a significant environmental impact that depends on reactor selection and operating conditions. To identify the main environmental bottlenecks for scale-up to industrial facilities this study provides a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of open raceway ponds and tubular photobioreactors at pilot scale. The results are based on experimental data from real pilot plants operated in summer, fall and winter at AlgaePARC (Wageningen, The Netherlands). The energy consumption for temperature regulation presented the highest environmental burden. The production of nutrients affected some categories. Despite limited differences compared to the vertical system, the horizontal PBR was found the most efficient in terms of productivity and environmental impact. The ORP was, given the Dutch climatic cond...

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are biochemical-catalyzed systems in which electricity is produced by oxidizing biodegradable organic matters in presence of either bacteria or enzyme. This system can serve as a device for generating clean energy and, also wastewater treatment unit. In this paper, production of bioelectricity in MFC in batch and continuous systems were investigated. A dual chambered air–cathode MFC was fabricated for this purpose. Graphite plates were used as electrodes and glucose as a substrate with initial concentration of 30 g l−1 was used. Cubic MFC reactor was fabricated and inoculated with Saccharomyces cerevisiae PTCC 5269 as active biocatalyst. Neutral red with concentration of 200 μmol l−1 was selected as electron shuttle in anaerobic anode chamber. In order to enhance the performance of MFC, potassium permanganate at 400 μmol l−1 concentration as oxidizer was used. The performance of MFC was analyzed by the measurement of polarization curve and cyclic volatmmetric data as well. Closed circuit voltage was obtained using a 1 kΩ resistance. The voltage at steady-state condition was 440 mV and it was stable for the entire operation time. In a continuous system, the effect of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on performance of MFC was examined. The optimum HRT was found to be around 7 h. Maximum produced power and current density at optimum HRT were 1210 mA m−2 and 283 mW m−2, respectively.► Power generation was investigated in a single MFC at batch and continuous modes. ► Continuous MFCs offer some advantages over batch systems for practical applications. ► Polarity and cyclic voltammetry, were adopted to analyze experimental data. ► OCV was stable for the duration of 72 h of operation time in batch system. ► At optimum HRT (6.7 h), maximum output were 1210 mA m−2 and 283 mW m−2, respectively.

Heat transfer simulation within heating furnaces is of great significance for prediction and control of the performance of furnaces. In this paper, a set of models is proposed to solve heat transfer problems in a loaded furnace. Furthermore, a 2-dimensional algorithm based on a finite difference method is presented. The heat transfer models are integrated with a furnace model to simulate the heating process of workpieces. Temperature variation of the workpiece with time is predicted by the system. An experiment is carried out for validation of the system. Themain objective of this work is to evaluate the behavior of a heated enclosure, when variable radiant panels are introduced. Experimental investigation shows that their efficiency depends on their position.

This paper investigates typical behaviors like damped oscillations in fractional order (FO) dynamical systems. Such response occurs due to the presence of, what is conceived as, pseudo-damping and meta-damping in some special class of FO systems. Here, approximation of such damped oscillation in FO systems with the conventional notion of integer order damping and time constant has been carried out using Genetic Algorithm (GA). Next, a multilayer feed-forward Artificial Neural Network (ANN) has been trained using the GA based results to predict the optimal pseudo and meta-damping from knowledge of the maximum order or number of terms in the FO dynamical system.

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is a fast growing megacity with a population of 12.8 million. Due to its tropical location, dense urban morphology and higher than average density of population, buildings in Dhaka are likely to be adversely affected by the projected changes in climate, in particular by the increases in temperature. Buildings play a vital role in most aspects of our lives and their energy consumption patterns affect climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. It is important to understand the likely impact of the projected increases in temperature on cooling and heating requirements in buildings in future climates. In this research, global projections on changes in temperature are temporally downscaled using a statistically averaged baseline present-day hourly weather data to generate future weather data in three timeslices: 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. Time series data for the present-day and future climates are analyzed as well as heating and cooling degree-days are calculated.Analysis shows that heating degree-days decrease whereas cooling degree-days continue to increase in future climates. The magnitude of change in monthly cooling degree-days is uneven and is greater in winter months than in summer and monsoon. Increased occurrences of temperatures above comfort threshold throughout the year are likely to have significant consequences for human health and wellbeing. The severity and duration of outdoor temperatures in the form of increased cooling degree-days in future climates will result in a surge in demand for energy for comfort cooling, which will add further stress to the already stressed energy infrastructure in the country. Prompt actions from stakeholders are, therefore, essential to enhance the resilience of Dhaka’s buildings to climate change.► Investigates climate change impacts on buildings in Dhaka, Bangladesh in the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. ► Cooling degree-days increase in future climates while heating degree-days decrease. ► Winter months warm more than summer months. ► Uneven change in monthly cooling degree-days at different base temperature. ► Reduction of solar and internal heat gain needs to be prioritized.

In this work, low temperature Organic Rankine Cycles are studied as bottoming cycle in medium and large scale combined cycle power plants. The analysis aims to show the interest of using these alternative cycles with high efficiency heavy duty gas turbines, for example recuperative gas turbines with lower gas turbine exhaust temperatures than in conventional combined cycle gas turbines. The following organic fluids have been considered: R113, R245, isobutene, toluene, cyclohexane and isopentane. Competitive results have been obtained for toluene and cyclohexane ORC combined cycles, with reasonably high global efficiencies.The paper is structured in four main parts. A review of combined cycle and ORC cycle technologies is presented, followed by a thermodynamic analysis of combined cycles with commercial gas turbines and ORC low temperature bottoming cycles. Then, a parametric optimization of an ORC combined cycle plant is performed in order to achieve a better integration between these two technologies. Finally, some economic considerations related to the use of ORC in combined cycles are discussed.