Decarbonising through advances in heat exchange technology
Fossil fuels have been at the centre of a truly remarkable period of development and growth for the global population.
In recent decades, however, the negative environmental impact and increasingly high economic cost of fossil fuel use have powered what many are dubbing the “next energy transition” – or should we say “energy evolution” – as we search for new ways to decarbonise our energy use.
In the August 2022 issue of Decarbonisation Technology magazine, authors Gerald Marinitsch, David Moon and Lowy Gunnewiek of Solex Thermal Science note that a tremendous amount of work and money is being directed toward making decarbonised and renewable energy available to us when we need and want it. This is leading to a pressing need for more readily available energy storage, from which a variety of different technologies are currently available or being developed, such as batteries, pumped hydro, and green hydrogen.
Titled, "Decarbonising through advances in heat exchange technology," the article by Marinitsch, Moon and Gunnewiek focuses one of the more notable and promising developments in this arena, that being long duration thermal energy storage (LD-TES) systems that use solid particles. An example of this is taking the thermal energy that can be generated from concentrated solar power (CSP) and transferring it to solid particles so it can be stored and used later when the sun is not shining.
To enable this option for LD-TES, a new generation of moving bed heat exchangers (MBHEs) are also being developed so the thermal energy can be extracted from solid particles and subsequently converted into a useable energy form such as electricity.
This entry was last updated on 2022-8-30
Return to Articles