I-Corps: Large-Scale, Waste Heat Recovery Solution Based on Thermoacoustic Energy Conversion

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种能量回收系统，能够利用声波物理将以过剩蒸汽或废气形式的废热能量转化为可用电力。这些系统的记录效率约为20%。目标终端用户将是食品和饮料、汽车、重金属或石油和天然气行业的大型工业设施，或者是正在努力解决余热管理和/或致力于向离网地区提供电力的农村政府实体。拟议的技术是由各种工艺中以蒸汽或废气形式存在的低级废热驱动的。例如，最近使用热电联产(CHP)机组以高质量流量输出低品位蒸汽的制造地点数量有所增加。这项技术将作为热电联产的补充系统，通过利用利用的低品位蒸汽能源提供电力，进一步节省成本。通过将拟议的技术集成到制造设施中，通过在将蒸汽释放到环境中之前对蒸汽进行冷却，将减轻高温蒸汽输出造成的热污染。这个i-Corps项目基于能量回收系统的开发，该系统由两个独立的子系统组成：(1)用于利用蒸汽烟囱或废气管道的废热的热模块；(2)用于将废热转化为电力的热声发电机。根据可用的蒸汽堆的大小和热容量，每个热模块可以为任何行业合作伙伴定制。利用在热模块中的热能将通过传热液转移到热声发电机中。热声发电机将在所有系统中保持一致，从而实现更简化的制造。拟议中的创新可能会扩大到类似于私人家庭中看到的小型备用发电机的大小，或者扩大到重工业中使用的天然气发电机的大小。工业赞助商使用多种类型的工作液和能量提取方法帮助推动了这项技术的进步。此外，用于预测导致热能转换的流体现象的物理的计算模型也有了很大的进步，特别是在行波上。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of an energy recovery system capable of converting waste heat energy in the form of excess vapor or exhaust gas into usable electricity using the physics of acoustic waves. Documented efficiencies of these systems are approximately 20%. The target end user of would be a large-scale industrial facility in the food and beverage, automotive, heavy metal, or oil and natural gas industries or a rural government entity struggling with waste heat management and/or committed to providing power to off-grid areas. The proposed technology is driven by low grade waste heat in the form of vapor or exhaust from various processes. For example, there has been a recent increase in the number of manufacturing sites utilizing combined heat and power (CHP) units that output low grade steam at a high mass flow rate. This technology would act as a complementary system to CHP, providing further cost-savings by supplying electric power from harnessed low-grade steam energy. By integrating the proposed technology into a manufacturing facility, thermal pollution caused by high temperature vapor output will be mitigated by cooling the vapor before releasing it into the environment.This I-Corps project is based on the development of an energy recovery system comprised of two independent subsystems: (1) a thermal module to harness the waste heat from a vapor stack or exhaust gas tubing; and (2) a thermoacoustic electric generator to convert the waste heat into electric power. Each thermal module may be custom-made for any industry partner depending on the size and thermal capacity of the vapor stack available. The heat energy harnessed in the thermal module will be transferred via a heat transfer fluid into the thermoacoustic electric generator. The thermoacoustic electric generator will remain consistent across all systems allowing for more streamlined manufacturing. The proposed innovation may be scaled similarly to the size of a small backup generator seen in private homes or scaled to the size of a natural gas generator used in heavy industry. Industrial sponsors have aided the advance of the technology using multiple types of working fluids and energy extraction methods. In addition, there has been substantial advancement in computational modeling used to predict the physics of the fluid phenomenon that is responsible for the heat energy conversion, focusing specifically on traveling waves.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.