Fundamentals of Metal Particle Combustion in Extreme Environments for Power Generation and Energetic Applications

人们普遍认为，我们的社会必须从化石燃料转向可再生能源，以减缓气候变化，实现可持续的低碳社会。我们需要的是一种储存大量清洁电力的技术，并能将这些电力远距离输送。与我在麦吉尔大学的同事和学生一起，我们开创了用空气或水燃烧金属燃料为发动机、蒸汽涡轮机或燃料电池提供动力的新概念，用于发电和推动大型车辆。金属燃料比电池或氢气具有更高的体积能量密度，储存和运输安全，并且在燃烧过程中不产生碳排放。如果产生的金属氧化物通过清洁的电力回收回原始金属，则完整的可持续能源循环是无碳的。这为加拿大提供了一个有吸引力的机会，我们提供清洁能源和金属加工工业，在未来的低碳经济中再加工氧化物并以金属燃料的形式出口能源。为金属粉末的反应建立一个强有力的科学基础是本研究计划的动机。我们的研究激发了全世界对金属燃料发电系统的兴趣。实现这一愿景的关键挑战是目前缺乏能够有效地将金属粉末中的化学能直接转化为机械能和/或电能的终端设备。目前的DG提案将使设计和测试这种能量转换装置能够从金属粉末与空气或水的反应中提取能量。我们还将把我们以前在金属燃烧方面的基础工作扩展到更极端的压力和温度值，以提高大功率应用的燃烧速度。金属-水混合物的反应将被推到超临界条件下，在那里期望产生高速率的氢。使用细金属颗粒和强起爆源，我们将确定最小反应时间，扩展我们最近的工作，表明金属-水混合物可以反应足够快，可以用作清洁燃烧的推进剂或爆炸物，产生无污染的燃烧产物，这对于深采矿应用具有吸引力，对加拿大经济有重要贡献。我提出的研究项目为HQP的发展提供了丰富的培训机会。这项研究的成功取决于我有幸与之合作的优秀学生以及我的研究团队其他成员的贡献。HQP将进一步提高他们的基础科学知识，并发展他们生产金属燃料原型机的工程专业知识。他们在我们充满活力的研究团队中发展的技术和沟通技巧将使他们在离开麦吉尔后进入任何具有挑战性的工作环境中茁壮成长。

It is widely recognized that our society must transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources to mitigate climate change and enable a sustainable low-carbon society. What is needed is a technology to store large amounts of clean electricity, with the ability to transport this energy over large distances. Together with my colleagues and students at McGill, we have pioneered the novel concept of burning metal fuels with either air or water to power engines, steam turbines, or fuel cells, for power generation and to propel large vehicles. Metal fuels have a higher volumetric energy density than batteries or hydrogen, are safe to store and transport, and produce no carbon emissions during combustion. If the metal oxides produced are recycled back to the original metal with clean electricity, the complete sustainable energy cycle is carbon free. This provides an attractive opportunity for Canada, with our supply of clean energy and metal-processing industries, to reprocess oxides and export energy in the form of metal fuels in a future low-carbon economy. Developing a strong scientific foundation for the reaction of metal powders forms the motivation for the proposed research program. Our research has spurred worldwide interest in metal-fueled power generation systems. The key outstanding challenge to achieving this vision is the current lack of end-use devices that can efficiently convert the chemical energy within the metal powders directly into mechanical work and/or electricity. The present DG proposal will enable the design and testing of such energy conversion devices to extract the energy from the reaction of metal powders with air or water. We will also extend our previous fundamental work on metal combustion to more extreme pressure and temperature values to enhance the rate of combustion for high-power applications. The reaction of metal-water mixtures will be pushed into supercritical conditions where high rates of hydrogen production are expected. Using fine metal particles and a strong initiation source, we will determine minimum reaction times, extending our recent work that has shown that metal-water mixtures can react fast enough to be used as either a clean-burning propellant or explosive, producing pollution-free combustion products, which is attractive for deep mining applications, a significant contributor to the Canadian economy. My proposed research program provides a wealth of training opportunities for the development of HQP. The success of the research is dependent on the great students I have the pleasure to work with as well as the contributions of other members of my research team. The HQP will further their fundamental scientific knowledge as well as develop their engineering expertise to produce metal-fueled prototypes. The technical and communication skills they develop within our dynamic research group will allow them to thrive in any challenging work environment they enter after leaving McGill.