Background The creation of effective energy conversion technologies has become essential in response to the challenges of integrating diurnally and seasonally intermittent and variable renewable energy resources. Specifically, one of the most important steps toward the economical production of sustainable fuels and organic chemicals is the conversion...

As the world gears up for the ongoing renewable energy revolution, the temporal variability of the renewable sources remains a big headache for designing a reliable electricity grid. A multi-level energy storage infrastructure is thus necessary to maintain high, year-round dispatchability. No technology that currently exists is ideally suited to meet...

The entire human food system is photosynthesis-based, i.e. it originates as plant matter/biomass. Contrary to popular perception, domestic animals are not the most inefficient link in the human food chain, photosynthesis in plants is. While the theoretical energy efficiency of photosynthesis is about 26%, when you take into account nonabsorbable incident...

There are a number of circumstances where electricity is needed, but wired power delivery is not available, convenient, or technologically feasible. Remote industrial, scientific, and military endeavors often journey beyond established infrastructure, making wired power delivery more complicated, expensive, and dangerous. Also, emergency situations...

­Thermochemical reactors provide an effective means for water splitting and carbon dioxide splitting. These reactors are able to produce energized chemicals (e.g., hydrogen and carbon monoxide), which can subsequently be used in other chemical reactions (e.g., to reduce, add functionality, etc.) or from which other chemicals can be made (e.g.,...

Background Thermochemical energy storage has many practical implementation challenges, one of which is creating and maintaining a low oxygen partial pressure (pO2) during the thermal reduction step. In order to reduce the pO2, current approaches are to either purge the reactor with an inert sweep gas, or vacuum pumping. However, both of these approaches...

Background Oxygen (O2) sorption materials can be used as a means for either producing a low partial pressure of oxygen (PO2) environment for chemical processes or in the production of O2 rich gas (>21 %) from leaner O2 gas streams (O2 composition < 21% down to PO2 < 10 Pa or lower). Oxygen removal and O2 enrichment are critical processes in...

Background Thermochemical reactors can provide an effective means for splitting water and carbon dioxide. These reactors are able to produce energized chemicals such as H2 and CO, which can be subsequently used in other chemical reactions (e.g., as reductants or as fuels). In water splitting, the main competing technologies are steam-methane reforming...

The common approach for transportation of hydrogen - the least dense of all gasses - is to substantially densify it so it can economically suit existing transportation modes. Densification is achieved by compression (up to 700 bar), by liquefaction (cooling below -253 °C), or by chemical conversion. Conventional hydrogen transportation methods often...

Background High-temperature heaters have many applications, including the high-temperature processing of materials. As fossil fuel burners, such as natural gas burners, are replaced with renewable alternatives, the number of applications will increase. Conventional high temperature electrical heaters have been based on silicon carbide or molybdenum...