Pecologix Political Ecology Blotter

Recently, there is growing demand for energy saving technologies in buildings due to global warming and environmental impact issue. As a result to this, energy-efficient technologies are becoming more popular amongst researchers and designers. In this regards, to fulfil energy conservation demands, researchers have focused on the development of advance heat or energy recovery with [...]

The thermal performance of a horizontal-coupled ground-source heat pump system has been assessed both experimentally and numerically in a UK climate. A numerical simulation of thermal behaviour of the horizontal-coupled heat exchanger for combinations of different ambient air temperatures, wind speeds, refrigerant temperature and soil thermal properties was studied using a validated 2D transient model. [...]

Adsorption refrigeration and heat pump systems have been considered as important means for the efficient use of low-grade thermal energy of 60–150 °C. Sorption systems are merely thermodynamic systems based on heat exchangers, and therefore a good design to optimize heat and mass transfer with reaction or sorption processes is very important, for which the [...]

The utilization of low-grade heat could significantly reduce energy consumption in thermal desalination plants. This paper studies the feasibility of using low-grade heat for thermal desalination via a hybrid absorption heat pump system, in which ammonia–water is the working fluid. A thermodynamic model was proposed to simulate the operation for freshwater production of 5000 T/day [...]

Molten slags represent one of the largest untapped energy sources in metal manufacturing operations. The waste heat of slags amounting to not, vert, similar220 TWh/year at temperatures in the range of 1200–1600 °C, presents an opportunity to lower the energy intensity of metal production. Currently, three types of technologies are under development for utilizing the [...]

We demonstrate a new method for the direct conversion of heat to electricity using the recently discovered multiferroic alloy, Ni45Co5Mn40Sn101. This alloy undergoes a low hysteresis, reversible martensitic phase transformation from a nonmagnetic martensite phase to a strongly ferromagnetic austenite phase upon heating. When biased by a suitably placed permanent magnet, heating through the phase [...]

A detailed analysis of the heating and cooling performance of environmental heat sources and sinks is presented for 12 low-energy buildings in Germany. In particular, the analysis focuses on the given temperature levels and the efficiency performance of the environmental heat sources and sinks in summer and winter. The investigated buildings employ environmental heat sources [...]