EAGER: SusChem: Enhanced Electricity Production from Engineered Salinity Gradients Using Capacitive Mixing

EAGER：SusChem：利用电容混合提高工程盐度梯度的发电量

• 批准号: 1464891
• 负责人: Bruce Logan
• 金额: $ 13万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-04-01 至 2016-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1464891&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; SusChem; Enhanced; Electricity; Production

146489LoganSeveral technologies are being explored to capture electrical energy from salinity gradients, which may exist naturally (e.g., seawater and river water) or be engineered (e.g., by using waste heat and thermolytic salts). One of the newest methods to produce energy from salinity gradients is capacitive and pseudo-capacitive mixing (CapMix). In this approach, capacitive electrodes are alternately exposed to solutions having high and low salt concentrations. CapMix has a critical advantage over other technologies being explored (e.g., pressure retarded osmosis, PRO; and reverse electrodialysis, RED) in that it does not require membrane materials, which are often prohibitively expensive. To date, however, CapMix has produced lower power densities than these membrane-based processes. The purpose of this project is to improve power production using CapMix through chemical modification of carbon electrode surfaces and testing novel metal-based electrodes. The use of salinity gradient energy is an opportunity to reach out to young scientists and engineers that are eager to find new ways to produce carbon-neutral electricity. The highly interdisciplinary nature of power production from salinity gradients presents a unique opportunity to showcase different technical fields that span solution and surface chemistry, water quality, renewable materials, engineering economics, and electrical power production. To convey information on salinity gradient energy, it is proposed to create a website and YouTube videos to inform students how to make and test these devices so that they could build these systems for home and school studies and science fairs. This will encourage creativity and learning at home through experimentation and through self-motivated learning via the internet, where the PI has had success in the past with high school student inquiries. The findings of this project could have important implications for global energy production using carbon-neutral technologies, and further advance achieving energy sustainability of the water infrastructure through such processes as energy recovery from waste heat.To date, CapMix studies have used NaCl solutions to generate salinity gradients. This project will focus on a new approach that uses a thermolytic salts (i.e., ammonium bicarbonate, AmB) or chemicals (ammonia) that can be distilled at low temperatures (45 degrees C). The main objective is to demonstrate that CapMix power production can be substantially increased by using new, un-tested thermolytic solutions with metal and chemically-modified carbon electrodes. There are no data on this unique combination of materials and thermolytic chemicals, and these experiments will provide a proof of concept that altering the electrode type and chemistry can increase performance by widening the voltage window. For the metal electrodes, the team will measure the power densities generated by using novel manganese, silver, or copper based electrodes. For the carbon electrodes, we will examine the effects on performance of surface chemistry alterations using oxidative treatments, acidic treatments, and the bonding of specific chemicals. The work is guided in part by the success of modifying activated carbon to function as supercapacitors in sulfuric acid solutions, although here the AmB solution conditions will be sufficiently different such that the trends will likely differ from previous results. This approach is considered to be based on sustainable chemistry, as most of the materials (e.g., carbon electrodes, ammonia) are Earth-abundant and are used in closed-loop systems.

正在探索146489谷藻技术，以从盐度梯度中捕获电能，这些梯度可能自然存在（例如，海水和河水）或进行了设计（例如，使用废热和热溶解盐）。从盐度梯度中产生能量的最新方法之一是电容和伪稳态混合（CAPMIX）。在这种方法中，电容电极交替暴露于具有较高盐浓度的溶液。与正在探索的其他技术相比，CapMix具有关键的优势（例如，压力减速渗透，Pro；和反向电透析，红色），因为它不需要膜材料，而膜材料通常非常昂贵。但是，迄今为止，CapMix的功率密度低于这些基于膜的过程。该项目的目的是通过化学修饰碳电极表面和测试新型金属电极来改善使用CAPMIX的功率。使用盐度梯度能量是与年轻的科学家和工程师接触的机会，这些科学家和工程师渴望找到新的方法来生产碳中性电力。来自盐度梯度的电力生产的高度跨学科性质为展示跨越解决方案和表面化学，水质，可再生材料，工程经济学和电力生产的不同技术领域提供了独特的机会。为了传达有关盐度梯度能源的信息，建议创建一个网站和YouTube视频，以告知学生如何制作和测试这些设备，以便他们可以为家庭和学校学习和科学博览会构建这些系统。这将通过实验和通过Internet进行自我激励的学习来鼓励在家中的创造力和学习，而Pi过去在高中生的询问中取得了成功。该项目的发现可能对使用碳中性技术对全球能源产生具有重要意义，并通过诸如从废物中的能量回收等过程来进一步提高水基础设施的能源可持续性。到迄今为止，Capmix研究使用NACL溶液来产生盐度梯度。该项目将集中在一种新方法上，该方法使用热液盐（即碳酸氢铵，AMB）或化学物质（氨），该方法可以在低温（45度C）下进行蒸馏。主要目的是证明，通过使用金属和化学改性的碳电极使用新的未测试热解溶液，可以大大增加Capmix功率的产生。没有关于材料和热解化学物质的独特组合的数据，这些实验将提供概念证明，以改变电极类型和化学可以通过扩大电压窗口来提高性能。对于金属电极，团队将通过使用新型锰，银或铜电极来测量产生的功率密度。对于碳电极，我们将使用氧化处理，酸性处理和特定化学物质的键合研究表面化学改变的性能。这项工作的部分是取决于将活性碳改性为硫酸溶液中超级电容器起作用的成功，尽管此处的AMB溶液条件将足够不同，以使趋势可能与以前的结果不同。这种方法被认为是基于可持续化学的，因为大多数材料（例如，碳电极，氨）含量丰富，并用于闭环系统中。