In 2007, Pharogen submitted a proposal to a Florida Department of Energy’s solicitation for its Florida Renewable Energy Technologies Grant Program.
The proposed product is “turnkey” equipment that can be installed in industrial plants such as electricity generation and chemical plants or steel and aluminum foundries for the purpose of turning waste heat into electricity.
These new products are specifically for the use of industrial processes that operate with high temperature heat fluxes. The equipment uses a combination of Sterling engine technology and thermoelectric devices to transform that heat flux into electrical energy.
The electrical power thus generated can be fed back into the local power distribution system at the plant to operate auxiliary equipment or to lighten the electrical load of the entire operation. This would result not only in monetary savings to the business unit, but also in reduced electrical load to the local area power grid.
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The Seebeck effect in thermoelectric materials pertains to an electric current that flows continuously between two dissimilar metals when their junctions are maintained at two different temperatures. The voltage thereby produced is proportional to the temperature difference between the two junctions. This phenomenon can be mathematically described by the relation: S=-dV/dT, where S is the Seebeck coefficient , dV is the voltage difference as measured between the hot and cold junction, and dT is the temperature difference. Typical thermoelectric devices consist of a pair of dissimilar materials, or elements, placed between ceramics or aluminum substrates. Current devices are primarily made of semi-conducting materials. The alternating p-type and n-type elements are connected such that electrical current flows in series while heat flows in parallel. Heat supplied to the hot side causes electrons and holes to thermally diffuse to the cold side. That motion is responsible for carrying an electrical charge.
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Carbon aerogels, developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), are unique porous materials consisting of interconnected nanometer-sized particles (3-30 nm) with small interstitial pores (< 50 nm).
The carbon aerogel solid matrix is composed of interconnected colloidal-like carbon particles or polymeric carbon chains depending on precursor formulation and processing conditions.
Calculations have shown that the addition of alkali metal dopants to single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) enhance H2 adsorption volume by 30%. That increase is due to a charge transfer of electrons from the metal cluster to the SWCNT, which polarizes the H2 molecule causing a dipole interaction between the alkali metal and the carbon atoms, thus improving H2 physisorption. We believe a similar behavior is inherent in MDCAs that use transition metals engrained within their matrix. Particularly as Yildrim and Ciraci demonstrated, through a first-principals total-energy study, that a total of four H2 monolayers are possible in SWCNT doped with titanium, a transition metal, corresponding to 8wt% hydrogen storage. Additionally, Grand Canonical Monte Carlo computer simulation studies have shown that a quadrupole moment and induced dipole interaction of H2 with charged SWCNT lead to an increase in adsorption relative to the uncharged tubes by 10-20% at 298K and 15-30% at 77K. As current flows via a tunneling mechanism in both carbon aerogels and metal nanoclusters, it is expected that asymmetric charge distributions responsible for inducing dipole moments will carry over to a second and third H2 monolayer, thus improving hydrogen adsorption capacity.
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