scholarly journals A comprehensive review of saline effluent disposal and treatment: conventional practices, emerging technologies, and future potential

Author(s):  
Parul Sahu

Abstract An ever-increasing volume of saline effluents from industries, oil–gas fields, and desalination plants has resulted in an enormous amount of pollutants with undesirable effects on the environment and human health. Adequate disposal and treatment of these effluents remains a persistent problem and poses significant technical as well as economic challenges. Saline effluents can have considerable environmental impacts, depending upon the sensitivity of the surrounding ecosystems. Conventional disposal techniques mostly suffer from direct or indirect contamination of water/soil and are no longer preferred. As a result, several advanced treatment methods are being considered for sustainable saline effluent management in recent times. In this context, a comprehensive and updated review of conventional methods, along with emerging technologies for disposal and treatment of saline effluent, is presented. Existing treatment approaches, including membrane operation, thermal processes, chemical techniques, and biological methods, are discussed. The application of innovative hybrid processes (combining two or more treatment methods) aiming at lower energy demand and higher treatment efficiency has also been evaluated. Subsequently, emerging sustainable strategies like waste minimization & water recovery, zero liquid discharge, and resource recovery for saline effluents have been examined. The prospect of integrating the renewable energy sources with energy-intensive saline treatment methods towards energy–water–environment nexus is also explored.

Author(s):  
Molla Asmare ◽  
Mustafa Ilbas

Nowadays, the most decisive challenges we are fronting are perfectly clean energy making for equitable and sustainable modern energy access, and battling the emerging alteration of the climate. This is because, carbon-rich fuels are the fundamental supply of utilized energy for strengthening human society, and it will be sustained in the near future. In connection with this, electrochemical technologies are an emerging and domineering tool for efficiently transforming the existing scarce fossil fuels and renewable energy sources into electric power with a trivial environmental impact. Compared with conventional power generation technologies, SOFC that operate at high temperature is emerging as a frontrunner to convert the fuels chemical energy into electric power and permits the deployment of varieties of fuels with negligible ecological destructions. According to this critical review, direct ammonia is obtained as a primary possible choice and price-effective green fuel for T-SOFCs. This is because T-SOFCs have higher volumetric power density, mechanically stable, and high thermal shocking resistance. Also, there is no sealing issue problem which is the chronic issues of the planar one. As a result, the toxicity of ammonia to use as a fuel is minimized if there may be a leakage during operation. It is portable and manageable that can be work everywhere when there is energy demand. Besides, manufacturing, onboard hydrogen deposition, and transportation infrastructure connected snags of hydrogen will be solved using ammonia. Ammonia is a low-priced carbon-neutral source of energy and has more stored volumetric energy compared with hydrogen. Yet, to utilize direct NH3 as a means of hydrogen carrier and an alternative green fuel in T-SOFCs practically determining the optimum operating temperatures, reactant flow rates, electrode porosities, pressure, the position of the anode, thickness and diameters of the tube are still requiring further improvement. Therefore, mathematical modeling ought to be developed to determine these parameters before planning for experimental work. Also, a performance comparison of AS, ES, and CS- T-SOFC powered with direct NH3 will be investigated and best-performed support will be carefully chosen for practical implementation and an experimental study will be conducted for verification based on optimum parameter values obtained from numerical modeling.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4061 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoto Takatsu ◽  
Hooman Farzaneh

After the Great East Japan Earthquake, energy security and vulnerability have become critical issues facing the Japanese energy system. The integration of renewable energy sources to meet specific regional energy demand is a promising scenario to overcome these challenges. To this aim, this paper proposes a novel hydrogen-based hybrid renewable energy system (HRES), in which hydrogen fuel can be produced using both the methods of solar electrolysis and supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of biomass feedstock. The produced hydrogen is considered to function as an energy storage medium by storing renewable energy until the fuel cell converts it to electricity. The proposed HRES is used to meet the electricity demand load requirements for a typical household in a selected residential area located in Shinchi-machi in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan. The techno-economic assessment of deploying the proposed systems was conducted, using an integrated simulation-optimization modeling framework, considering two scenarios: (1) minimization of the total cost of the system in an off-grid mode and (2) maximization of the total profit obtained from using renewable electricity and selling surplus solar electricity to the grid, considering the feed-in-tariff (FiT) scheme in a grid-tied mode. As indicated by the model results, the proposed HRES can generate about 47.3 MWh of electricity in all scenarios, which is needed to meet the external load requirement in the selected study area. The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of the system in scenarios 1 and 2 was estimated at 55.92 JPY/kWh and 56.47 JPY/kWh, respectively.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 1988
Author(s):  
Ioannis E. Kosmadakis ◽  
Costas Elmasides

Electricity supply in nonelectrified areas can be covered by distributed renewable energy systems. The main disadvantage of these systems is the intermittent and often unpredictable nature of renewable energy sources. Moreover, the temporal distribution of renewable energy may not match that of energy demand. Systems that combine photovoltaic modules with electrical energy storage (EES) can eliminate the above disadvantages. However, the adoption of such solutions is often financially prohibitive. Therefore, all parameters that lead to a functionally reliable and self-sufficient power generation system should be carefully considered during the design phase of such systems. This study proposes a sizing method for off-grid electrification systems consisting of photovoltaics (PV), batteries, and a diesel generator set. The method is based on the optimal number of PV panels and battery energy capacity whilst minimizing the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for a period of 25 years. Validations against a synthesized load profile produced grid-independent systems backed by different accumulator technologies, with LCOEs ranging from 0.34 EUR/kWh to 0.46 EUR/kWh. The applied algorithm emphasizes a parameter of useful energy as a key output parameter for which the solar harvest is maximized in parallel with the minimization of the LCOE.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 217
Author(s):  
Amela Ajanovic ◽  
Marina Siebenhofer ◽  
Reinhard Haas

Environmental problems such as air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are especially challenging in urban areas. Electric mobility in different forms may be a solution. While in recent years a major focus was put on private electric vehicles, e-mobility in public transport is already a very well-established and mature technology with a long history. The core objective of this paper is to analyze the economics of e-mobility in the Austrian capital of Vienna and the corresponding impact on the environment. In this paper, the historical developments, policy framework and scenarios for the future development of mobility in Vienna up to 2030 are presented. A major result shows that in an ambitious scenario for the deployment of battery electric vehicles, the total energy demand in road transport can be reduced by about 60% in 2030 compared to 2018. The major conclusion is that the policies, especially subsidies and emission-free zones will have the largest impact on the future development of private and public e-mobility in Vienna. Regarding the environmental performance, the most important is to ensure that a very high share of electricity used for electric mobility is generated from renewable energy sources.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2045
Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Garavaso ◽  
Fabio Bignucolo ◽  
Jacopo Vivian ◽  
Giulia Alessio ◽  
Michele De Carli

Energy communities (ECs) are becoming increasingly common entities in power distribution networks. To promote local consumption of renewable energy sources, governments are supporting members of ECs with strong incentives on shared electricity. This policy encourages investments in the residential sector for building retrofit interventions and technical equipment renovations. In this paper, a general EC is modeled as an energy hub, which is deemed as a multi-energy system where different energy carriers are converted or stored to meet the building energy needs. Following the standardized matrix modeling approach, this paper introduces a novel methodology that aims at jointly identifying both optimal investments (planning) and optimal management strategies (operation) to supply the EC’s energy demand in the most convenient way under the current economic framework and policies. Optimal planning and operating results of five refurbishment cases for a real multi-family building are found and discussed, both in terms of overall cost and environmental impact. Simulation results verify that investing in building thermal efficiency leads to progressive electrification of end uses. It is demonstrated that the combination of improvements on building envelope thermal performances, photovoltaic (PV) generation, and heat pump results to be the most convenient refurbishment investment, allowing a 28% overall cost reduction compared to the benchmark scenario. Furthermore, incentives on shared electricity prove to stimulate higher renewable energy source (RES) penetration, reaching a significant reduction of emissions due to decreased net energy import.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 500
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Pilo ◽  
Giuditta Pisano ◽  
Simona Ruggeri ◽  
Matteo Troncia

The energy transition for decarbonization requires consumers’ and producers’ active participation to give the power system the necessary flexibility to manage intermittency and non-programmability of renewable energy sources. The accurate knowledge of the energy demand of every single customer is crucial for accurately assessing their potential as flexibility providers. This topic gained terrific input from the widespread deployment of smart meters and the continuous development of data analytics and artificial intelligence. The paper proposes a new technique based on advanced data analytics to analyze the data registered by smart meters to associate to each customer a typical load profile (LP). Different LPs are assigned to low voltage (LV) customers belonging to nominal homogeneous category for overcoming the inaccuracy due to non-existent coincident peaks, arising by the common use of a unique LP per category. The proposed methodology, starting from two large databases, constituted by tens of thousands of customers of different categories, clusters their consumption profiles to define new representative LPs, without a priori preferring a specific clustering technique but using that one that provides better results. The paper also proposes a method for associating the proper LP to new or not monitored customers, considering only few features easily available for the distribution systems operator (DSO).


Author(s):  
Bisma Imtiaz ◽  
Imran Zafar ◽  
Cui Yuanhui

Due to the rapid increase in energy demand with depleting conventional sources, the world’s interest is moving towards renewable energy sources. Microgrid provides easy and reliable integration of distributed generation (DG) units based on renewable energy sources to the grid. The DG’s are usually integrated to microgrid through inverters. For a reliable operation of microgrid, it must have to operate in grid connected as well as isolated mode. Due to sudden mode change, performance of the DG inverter system will be compromised. Design and simulation of an optimized microgrid model in MATLAB/Simulink is presented in this work. The goal of the designed model is to integrate the inverter-interfaced DG’s to the microgrid in an efficient manner. The IEEE 13 bus test feeder has been converted to a microgrid by integration of DG’s including diesel engine generator, photovoltaic (PV) block and battery. The main feature of the designed MG model is its optimization in both operated modes to ensure the high reliability. For reliable interconnection of designed MG model to the power grid, a control scheme for DG inverter system based on PI controllers and DQ-PLL (phase-locked loop) has been designed. This designed scheme provides constant voltage in isolated mode and constant currents in grid connected mode. For power quality improvement, the regulation of harmonic current insertion has been performed using LCL filter. The performance of the designed MG model has been evaluated from the simulation results in MATLAB/ Simulink.


2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-30
Author(s):  
Nasreddine ATTOU ◽  
Sid-Ahmed ZIDI ◽  
Mohamed KHATIR ◽  
Samir HADJERI

Energy management in grid-connected Micro-grids (MG) has undergone rapid evolution in recent times due to several factors such as environmental issues, increasing energy demand and the opening of the electricity market. The Energy Management System (EMS) allows the optimal scheduling of energy resources and energy storage systems in MG in order to maintain the balance between supply and demand at low cost. The aim is to minimize peaks and fluctuations in the load and production profile on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to make the most of renewable energy sources and energy exchanges with the utility grid. In this paper, our attention has been focused on a Rule-based energy management system (RB EMS) applied to a residential multi-source grid-connected MG. A Microgrid model has been implemented that combines distributed energy sources (PV, WT, BESS), a number of EVs equipped with the Vehicle to Grid technology (V2G) and variable load. Different operational scenarios were developed to see the behaviour of the implemented management system during the day, including the random demand profile of EV users, the variation in load and production, grid electricity price variation. The simulation results presented in this paper demonstrate the efficacy of the suggested EMS and confirm the strategy's feasibility as well as its ability to properly share power among different sources, loads and vehicles by obeying constraints on each element.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Hamlehdar ◽  
Alireza Aslani

Abstract Today, the fossil fuels have dominant share of energy supply in order to respond to the high energy demand in the world. Norway is one of the countries with rich sources of fossil fuels and renewable energy sources. The current work is to investigate on the status of energy demand in Norway. First, energy and electricity consumption in various sectors, including industrial, residential are calculated. Then, energy demand in Norway is forecasted by using available tools. After that, the relationship between energy consumption in Norway with Basic economics parameters such as GDP, population and industry growth rate has determined by using linear regression model. Finally, the regression result shows a low correlation between variables.


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