Solar Dryer: Agriculture and Food Drying Systems

Solar dryers are special structures that enhance the drying power of the sun and protect the agricultural product from dust, dirt, and insects. Table below shows a block diagram of an active solar drying system, consisting of solar air collectors, a drying unit or chamber, and an air handling unit. An active solar drying system can accommodate the use of a backup heat source when there in not enough solar heat available. (more…)

Solar Water Heating for Swimming Pools

Solar water heating for swimming pool rank as the most successful but least heralded commercial solar application. The use of solar energy for pool heating and the equipment and needs of pool owners make a perfect match. The storage unit for the solar heated water already exists—the swimming pool. The pump needed to push water through the solar collectors must be purchased irrespective of the technology used to heat the water. The pool owner merely has to purchase the solar collectors. Since those using the pool generally want the temperature of the pool to be no higher than 801F (271C), the solar collectors do not require a costly glass cover or expensive metal sheeting and piping. (more…)

Geothermal Steam Production Fields

Geothermal wells need to undergo a test program before they are used. This is so that the baseline conditions of both the wells and the geothermal aquifers that they tap can be determined. This baseline data are critical because all future information is compared against them.

After drilling has been completed and before the initial discharge, the well downhole conditions are measured. The temperature and pressure are measured by using a clockwork Kuster gauge or electronic logging tools. Standard practice is to initially do an injection (or completion) test, that is, sometime at a series of flows, where the temperature, pressure, and possibly flows using a spinner tool are measured at intervals down the open hole section of the well. (more…)

Biomass Gasification For Heat And Electricity Generation

The product gas can be burned in boilers to generate heat and raise steam, in internal combustion engines to generate electricity and heat at small to medium scale (from a few kilowatts to a few megawatts), and in gas turbines to generate electricity (Brayton cycle) and heat at small to large scale. In large-scale systems using gas turbines, the exhaust gas from the gas turbine can be used to raise steam in a heat recovery steam generator to generate additional electricity using a steam turbine (Rankine cycle), resulting in combined cycle operation. (more…)

Microreactors, Combustors and Fuel Reformers | Energy Application of Micro Technology

Microtechnology-Based Energy and Chemical Systems will most likely employ combustion for driving processes such as vapor generation and vapor barrier, endothermic chemical reactions, and (most notably) fuel reforming. Both fuel reformers and combustors will be of a miniature design relying on embedded catalysts for promoting chemical reactions at moderate temperatures (350–7501C). Many potential configurations exist depending on the application and constraints on the design. Microchannel arrays are a potential configuration; mesh and post architecture is another to achieve the desired surface area and small diffusional lengths necessary. (more…)

Plate Tectonics And Mantle Convection

Plate tectonics is conceptually simple. It treats Earth’s outer shell as made up of approximately 15 rigid plates, about 100 km thick, that move relative to each other at speeds of a few centimeters per year (roughly the speed at which fingernails grow). The plates are rigid in the sense that little deformation (and ideally no deformation) occurs within them, so they move as coherent entities and deformation occurs at their boundaries, causing earthquakes, mountain building, volcanism, and other spectacular phenomena. The direction of the relative motion between two plates at a point on their common boundary determines the nature of the boundary. (more…)

Biomass Gasification Process Effect of Feedstock Properties and Operating Parameters

Biomass Gasification Feedstock
Thermo chemical processing of biomass yields gaseous, liquid, and solid products and offers a means of producing useful gaseous and/or liquid fuels. Biomass gasification is a total degradation process consisting of a sequence of thermal and thermo chemical processes that converts practically all the carbon in the biomass to gaseous form, leaving an inert residue. The gas produced consists of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrogen (N2) (if air is used as the oxidizing agent) and contains impurities, such as small char particles, ash, tars, and oils. The solid residue will consist of ash (composed principally of the oxides of Ca, K, Na, Mg, and Si) and possibly carbon or char. (more…)

Miniature and Microscale Heat Engines for Power Generation Propulsion

Many characteristics of traditional engines make them attractive for use in power generation and propulsion technology. They tend to be self-aspirating and rely on combustion, which at the macroscale is a very robust form of heat generation. Fuel is plentiful and inexpensive, with storage easily realized. The energy density of the fuel (or fuel plus container), when compared with electrochemical sources, is high. Along with these advantages come a number of drawbacks, especially where miniaturization is concerned. For example, an engine is thermodynamically restricted (by the Carnot efficiency) in its conversion of chemical energy to work due to the intermediate heat-generating step. (more…)

Evaporation and Boiling

evaporation boiling
If water is put on the floor on a cleaning operation, it tends to dry rapidly after a short time. In this position, we say that the water evaporates. Basically what happened is this means that changes in water levels from liquid to gas or steam. Evaporation occurs when molecules escape the surface of a liquid when they have enough kinetic energy to go off from the body of liquid. (more…)

Taking Benefits of Wind Energy Electricity

benefits of wind energy electricity
Wind energy comes from the mismatched heating system of the planet that runs all day and night, heated and cooled by the sun. They are also come as effect of the different between land and sea heat temperature, and natural barriers such as mountains. (more…)

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