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SUMMARY:IGM Colloquium: Solar energy harvesting and storage - an integrate
 d approach
DTSTART:20180424T121500
DTEND:20180424T131500
DTSTAMP:20260506T080350Z
UID:4c52cefff9a24ce93a1b2fb382d1aac6ff461b57d7e54bea6a8dab13
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Adelio Mendes\, University of Porto\, Laboratory for Pro
 cess Engineering\, Environment\, Biotechnology and Energy\nIn the 16th cen
 tury Thomas More described an ideal and sustainable city in his book Utopi
 a. Today´s an ideal city should comply with the Near Zero Energy Building
  directive (nick name for the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (2
 010/31/EU)) and going beyond. PV electricity is already today the cheapest
  if produced in countries with high solar irradiance\; the world’s cheap
 est price for electricity of 2017 was for a PV farm in Saudi Arabia [1].\n
 \nPV electricity is\, however\, only generated during the daylight time an
 d then just partially dispatchable. To make it fully dispatchable it is ne
 cessary to store and batteries is a technology of choice. Among electricit
 y storage technologies redox flow batteries (RFB) emerged as promising off
 ering very low storage costs [2]\, independent power from storage capacity
 \, very reliable and robust operation. The all vanadium RFBs display an en
 ergy density of ca. 50 Wh/L but the use of non-aqueous solvents for dissol
 ving the redox pairs promises to bring soon this energy density to values 
 which ideally can reach 1 kWh/L. The storage of electricity in an electro
 chemical fluid instead of a solid such as in conventional batteries opens 
 the doors to the electrochemical fuels that can be easily stored and trans
 ported.\n\nMore recently\, it was proposed the direct conversion of sunlig
 ht into storable electrochemical fuels using photoelectrochemical panels. 
 These panels comprehend just a glass window coated with a semiconductor an
 d an ion-exchange membrane\; the positive and negative electrolytes pass t
 hrough charging and heating up in a cogeneration process. The solar redox 
 flow batteries promise to bring the cost of stored electricity to even low
 er values making the dream of self-energy sustainable cities a closer real
 ity.\n\nReferences\n[1] - https://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/world
 -s-cheapest-prices-submitted-for-saudi-arabia-s-first-solar-project-1.6638
 42 – consulted in February 2018.\n[2] - http://energystoragereport.info/
 study-flow-batteries-beat-lithium-ion/#sthash.lfBTEoYs.dpbs – consulted 
 in February 2018.\n\n\nAbout the author\n\nProfessor Adélio Mendes (born 
 1964) received his PhD degree from the University of Porto in 1993. Full P
 rofessor at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the Faculty of Engin
 eering of the University of Porto. Professor Mendes coordinates a large re
 search team with research interests in dye sensitized solar cells and pero
 vskite solar cells\, photoelectrochemical cells\, photocatalysis\, redox f
 low batteries\, electrochemical membrane reactors (PEMFC\, H-SOFC\, chemic
 al synthesis)\, methanol steam reforming\, membrane and adsorbent-based ga
 s separations and carbon molecular sieve membranes synthesis and character
 ization.\n\n 
LOCATION:MED 0 1418 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==MED%200%201418
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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