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SUMMARY:MechE Colloquium: Solar energy harvesting and storage - an integra
 ted approach
DTSTART:20180424T121500
DTEND:20180424T131500
DTSTAMP:20260429T125422Z
UID:bf90a704fe1fc3dcab969e7a8085b2c9854309f858f30b627c25e130
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Adélio Mendes\, Laboratory for Process Engineering\, En
 vironment\, Biotechnology and Energy\, University of Porto\nAbstract:\nIn 
 the 16th century\, Thomas More described an ideal and sustainable city in 
 his book Utopia. Today´s ideal city should comply with the Near Zero Ener
 gy Building directive (nickname for the Energy Performance of Buildings Di
 rective (2010/31/EU)) and going beyond. PV electricity is already today th
 e cheapest if produced in countries with high solar irradiance\; the world
 ’s cheapest price for electricity of 2017 was for a PV farm in Saudi Ara
 bia [1].\n\nPV electricity is\, however\, only generated during daylight t
 ime and then just partially dispatchable. To make it fully dispatchable it
  is necessary to store and batteries is a technology of choice. Among elec
 tricity storage technologies redox flow batteries (RFB) emerged as promisi
 ng offering very low storage costs [2]\, independent power from storage ca
 pacity\, very reliable and robust operation. All vanadium RFBs display an 
 energy density of ca. 50 Wh/L but the use of non-aqueous solvents for diss
 olving the redox pairs promises to bring soon this energy density to value
 s which ideally can reach 1 kWh/L. The storage of electricity in an elect
 rochemical fluid instead of a solid such as in conventional batteries open
 s the doors to electrochemical fuels that can be easily stored and transpo
 rted.\n\nMore recently\, it was proposed the direct conversion of sunlight
  into storable electrochemical fuels using photoelectrochemical panels. Th
 ese panels comprehend just a glass window coated with a semiconductor and 
 an ion-exchange membrane\; the positive and negative electrolytes pass thr
 ough charging and heating up in a cogeneration process. The solar redox fl
 ow batteries promise to bring the cost of stored electricity to even lower
  values making the dream of self-energy sustainable cities a closer realit
 y.\n\nReferences\n[1] - https://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/world-s
 -cheapest-prices-submitted-for-saudi-arabia-s-first-solar-project-1.663842
  – consulted in February 2018.\n[2] - http://energystoragereport.info/st
 udy-flow-batteries-beat-lithium-ion/#sthash.lfBTEoYs.dpbs – consulted in
  February 2018.\n\nBio:\nProfessor Adélio Mendes (born 1964) received his
  PhD degree from the University of Porto in 1993. Full Professor at the De
 partment of Chemical Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering of the Univ
 ersity of Porto. Professor Mendes coordinates a large research team with r
 esearch interests in dye sensitized solar cells and perovskite solar cells
 \, photoelectrochemical cells\, photocatalysis\, redox flow batteries\, el
 ectrochemical membrane reactors (PEMFC\, H-SOFC\, chemical synthesis)\, me
 thanol steam reforming\, membrane and adsorbent-based gas separations and 
 carbon molecular sieve membranes synthesis and characterization.
LOCATION:MED 0 1418 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==MED%200%201418
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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