I-Corps: Thermophotovoltaic system without a vacuum or air gap

I-Corps：无真空或气隙的热光伏系统

• 批准号: 2311324
• 负责人: Longji Cui
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-03-15 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2311324&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Thermophotovoltaic; system; without; vacuum

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of novel zero gap thermophotovoltaic technology based on fundamental discovery in energy conversion science and material engineering. The innovation provides a feasible pathway, both technologically and economically, to revolutionize the field of waste heat harvesting and management. This new technology will improve the scientific understanding of a broad range of relevant physical effects and potential enhancement mechanisms to further improve energy conversion performance in other waste heat and renewable energy technologies. From the societal and commercial perspective, this project will impact the global trillion-dollar energy and building markets, leading to the improvement in both energy efficiency and substantiality and helping to address the grand challenge of the zero emissions by 2050.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a high performance thermophotovoltaic energy conversion technology (zero gap thermophotovoltaics) that provides thermophotovoltaic renewable power generation to the residential thermal energy market and co-generation to improve the energy efficiency and sustainability of existing residential thermal energy systems. The fundamental mechanism behind the proposed zero gap thermophotovoltaic technology has been validated with proof-of-concept device fabrication and tests. The unique device structure addresses the existing issues of traditional thermophotovoltaic technology, allowing much higher power output and efficiency, and making it possible for cost-effective, large-scale manufacturing and maintenance-free system level integration. These products, including energy co-generators and heat pump performance augmentation add-on devices, can be integrated easily within existing residential thermal energy systems. They provide a significant competitive advantage to solve the existing challenges faced by the current thermal energy systems manufacturers and integrators: the tradeoffs among energy efficiency, cost, and greenhouse emission reduction.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.

这个I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是基于能量转换科学和材料工程的基本发现开发新型零间隙热光伏技术。这项创新在技术和经济上为彻底改变废热收集和管理领域提供了一条可行的途径。这项新技术将提高对广泛的相关物理效应和潜在增强机制的科学理解，以进一步提高其他废热和可再生能源技术的能量转换性能。从社会和商业的角度来看，该项目将影响全球数万亿美元的能源和建筑市场，从而提高能源效率和实质性，并帮助应对到2050年实现零排放的巨大挑战。该I-Corps项目基于开发高性能热光伏能量转换技术（零间隙热光电），其向住宅热能市场提供热光伏可再生发电和热电联产，以提高现有住宅热能系统的能源效率和可持续性。提出的零间隙热光伏技术背后的基本机制已经通过概念验证设备制造和测试进行了验证。 独特的器件结构解决了传统热光伏技术存在的问题，允许更高的功率输出和效率，并使其成为具有成本效益的大规模制造和免维护系统级集成。这些产品，包括能源热电联产和热泵性能增强附加设备，可以很容易地集成到现有的住宅热能系统中。它们为解决当前热能系统制造商和集成商所面临的挑战提供了显著的竞争优势：在能源效率、成本和温室气体减排之间进行权衡。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。