Thermochemical conversion of sewage sludge: A critical review

The global response to warming of 1.5oC comprises transitions in land and ecosystem, energy, urban and infrastructure, and industrial systems. The feasibility of mitigation and adaptation options, and the enabling conditions for strengthening and implementing the systemic changes, are assessed in this chapter.

Strengthening and Implementing the Global Response

The need for energy-efficient and environmentally friendly refrigeration, heat pumping, air conditioning, and thermal energy harvesting systems is currently more urgent than ever. Magnetocaloric energy conversion is among the best available alternatives for achieving these technological goals and has been the subject of substantial basic and applied research over the last two decades. The subject is strongly interdisciplinary, requiring proper understanding and efficient integration of knowledge in different specialized fields. This review article presents a historical and up-to-date account of the energy-related applications of magnetocaloric materials and information about their processing and magnetic fields, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and other relevant characteristics. The article also discusses the conceptual design of magnetocaloric refrigeration and power generation systems and some guidelines for future research in the field.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/aenm.201903741

Energy Applications of Magnetocaloric Materials

The steep stepwise uptake of water vapor and easy release at low relative pressures and moderate temperatures together with high working capacities make metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) attractive, promising materials for energy efficient applications in adsorption devices for humidity control (evaporation and condensation processes) and heat reallocation (heating and cooling) by utilizing water as benign sorptive and low-grade renewable or waste heat. Emerging MOF-based process applications covered are desiccation, heat pumps/chillers, water harvesting, air conditioning, and desalination. Governing parameters of the intrinsic sorption properties and stability under humid conditions and cyclic operation are identified. Transport of mass and heat in MOF structures, at least as important, is still an underexposed topic. Essential engineering elements of operation and implementation are presented. An update on stability of MOFs in water vapor and liquid systems is provided, and a suite of 18 MOFs are identified for selective use in heat pumps and chillers, while several can be used for air conditioning, water harvesting, and desalination. Most applications with MOFs are still in an exploratory state. An outlook is given for further R&D to realize these applications, providing essential kinetic parameters, performing smart engineering in the design of systems, and conceptual process designs to benchmark them against existing technologies. A concerted effort bridging chemistry, materials science, and engineering is required.

Water and Metal-Organic Frameworks: From Interaction toward Utilization.

Low-grade heat (below 373 K) is abundant and ubiquitous, but mostly wasted due to the lack of cost-effective recovery technologies. The liquid-state thermocell (LTC), an inexpensive and scalable thermoelectric device, may be commercially viable for harvesting low-grade heat energy if its Carnot-relative efficiency (ηr) reaches ~5%, which is a challenging metric to achieve experimentally. We used a thermosensitive crystallization and dissolution process to induce persistent concentration gradient of redox ions, a highly enhanced Seebeck coefficient (~3.73 mV K–1), and suppressed thermal conductivity in LTCs. As a result, we achieved a high ηr of 11% for LTCs near room temperature, and a substantially decreased cost-performance of our LTC. Our device demonstration offers promise for cost-effective low-grade heat harvesting.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/370/6514/342.full.pdf

Thermosensitive crystallization-boosted liquid thermocells for low-grade heat harvesting.

The process chain of energy conversion from primary energy carriers to final energy use is subject to several losses. Especially in end use, vast amounts of converted energy occur as waste heat, which is often released to the environment. In terms of raising energy efficiency and reducing the energy consumption, such waste heat needs to be used. To date, some studies or investigations about industrial waste heat of selected countries have been carried out, but other sectors like commerce were not considered. Therefore, this work presents a novel top-down approach for the estimation of waste heat potential of the most common sectors of end use (transportation, industrial, commercial and residential) including electricity generation on a global scale. It also deals with the temperature distribution of this unused energy. The evaluation reveals that 72% of the global primary energy consumption is lost after conversion. In further detail, 63% of the considered waste heat streams arise at a temperature below 100 °C in which electricity generation has the largest share followed by transportation and industry.

Clemens Forman

Papers

Estimating the global waste heat potential

Ash and slag properties for co-gasification of sewage sludge and coal: An experimentally validated modeling approach

Coupling power generation with syngas-based chemical synthesis

CO2-to-X and Coal-to-X Concepts in Pulverized Coal Combustion Power Plants

Polygeneration-Annex: Combining lignite-based power generation and syngas-based chemicals production