Search

Electricity is a critical component of many everyday activities, demanding continuing research to create new or improved techniques for generating electrical power. Thermoelectric generators (TEGs), which work basically on the Seebeck effect can successfully transform input heat from numerous applications into valuable electrical energy, as well as power electronic devices and sensors on their own. However, obstacles include increasing the temperature difference and creating novel materials to improve electrical output and efficiency. Accordingly, this paper discusses these problems by providing a thorough examination of available strategies to enhance the thermoelectric performance. In this study, a variety of materials is presented, starting by the standard used conventional organic and inorganic thermoelectric (TE) materials. Organic materials, such as polyaniline and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT) composites, acquired ZT values ranging from 0.5 to 1.0, demonstrating their promise for versatile and low-cost applications. At extreme temperatures (∼500 K), inorganic materials such as bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) and lead telluride (PbTe) achieved ZT values around 2.0, indicating great efficiency in power production. Bi2Te3/PEDOT, a hybrid material with organic and inorganic components, demonstrated improved performance with ZT values of 1.5–2.0 due to the synergistic effects of its constituents. Novel composite materials, such as Bi2Te3-carbon nanotube (CNT) composites and using graphene, developed to optimize thermal and electrical characteristics, enhanced device performance by up to 25% over standard materials, with ZT values ranging from 1.8 to 2.2. In addition, in the present study the new recent materials after applying enhancement methods will be presented. These new materials are developed by different methods and synthesis such as doping, superlattice and heterostructure materials and other methods will be discussed. The main findings indicate that the strategic use of these advanced materials may significantly increase the efficiency and output power of TEG devices, making them more practical for a wide variety of applications. As an examples, 2.8 for (GeTe)0.95(Sb2Te3)0.05 alloy, 2.4 for Chalcogenide, ZrS2, Bismuth telluride thin film (p-type Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 superlattices) and 2.75 for Bismuth telluride thin film (Bi2Se1.2Te1.8). Finally, the present paper investigates on the newest technology and strategies that are applied in this research area in order to enhance the TEG performance enhancement.

This research addresses the problem of predicting the thermo-hydraulic performance of concentric tube heat exchangers (CTHE) under turbulent flow conditions, a critical aspect in energy-efficient industrial systems such as HVAC, power generation, and chemical processing. Existing studies often lack accurate predictive methods for balancing heat transfer performance with pumping power requirements. To tackle this issue, novel correlations and an iterative Newton–Raphson method were developed for predicting pumping power and heat transfer rates. Three-dimensional CFD simulations of a water-to-water counter-flow CTHE were conducted, with Reynolds numbers ranging from 4000 to 8000 for both the hot and cold fluids. The simulations employed the Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations with the k−ω SST turbulence model. The results demonstrated that increasing the Reynolds number enhances both heat transfer rates and pumping power, with the cold fluid requiring consistently higher pumping power. New correlations were developed to predict pumping power, capturing the impact of both entry and fully developed flow regions. These correlations showed an average error of less than 2.33% when compared with the CFD data. The iterative Newton–Raphson method for predicting heat transfer rates demonstrated high accuracy, with an average error of 0.66% for heat transfer rate, 0.03% for hot fluid outlet temperature, and 0.01% for cold fluid outlet temperature. Additionally, we identified optimal operating conditions for efficient cooling and heating based on the heat capacity ratio (Cr). The novelty of this work lies in the development of new, highly accurate predictive correlations and iterative methods for optimizing CTHE performance, going beyond existing literature by providing comprehensive insights into the relationship between pumping power, heat transfer efficiency, and flow conditions.

Fossil fuel consumption is the primary and most influential contributor to global warming. Since fossil fuels are non-renewable energy sources that will eventually be depleted, decision-makers are encouraging individuals and businesses to invest in renewable energy systems. Among these, photovoltaic (PV) panels offer a promising solution for combating global warming by generating electricity from solar energy. However, their efficiency diminishes as temperatures rise. Water cooling systems have emerged as highly effective in reducing PV panel temperatures and thereby enhancing efficiency. The current study focuses on theoretical parametric analysis of water-cooled PV panels, specifically examining the intervals of maximum and minimum relative efficiency enhancements suitable for residential applications. It provides energetic, economic, and environmental insights based on mathematical equations, providing theoretical parametric analysis based on relative efficiency enhancement values of water-cooling methods retrieved from the literature due to the lack of parametric studies present on cooling PV panels. Moreover, the scaled parametric analysis conducted is in terms of the PV area, prompting the user to enter the desired PV area to get insights on the possible system to be constructed. Interval and parametric studies were conducted at the level of water cooling, providing a tool for readers to estimate potential improvements in energy production, savings, and CO2 reduction based on PV applications with respect to the consumption ratio R, which is the amount of energy being consumed by the house from the PV panels. Results indicate that at minimum efficiency enhancement levels, the photovoltaic-thermal water (PVT-W) system demonstrated the highest values for energy enhancement, savings, and CO2 reduction, averaging 634.57R kWh, $272.86R, and 368.05R kg, respectively. Conversely, at maximum efficiency enhancement levels, the flowing water on the PV surface (PV-WS) system exhibited the highest values with averages of 678.16R kWh, $291.61R, and 393.33R kg, respectively. Furthermore, a linear relationship was observed among energy production, savings, and CO2 reduction concerning relative efficiency enhancement.

The aim of this study is to combine renewable energy sources with heat pumps so that the usage of electricity needed to operate heat pumps is minimized along with associated fuel combustion. The aforementioned objective leads to reduce the energy consumption, the operational cost and the environmental impact of the heat pump. To minimize the usage of electricity, it is proposed that the heat pump (HP) system is combined by two renewable energy systems, a Solar Air Heater (SAH) and a Geothermal Well Water (G). To enrich this study, five prospective combinations of Heat Pump (HP), Solar Air Heater (SAH) placed Upstream (U) and Downstream (D) of the condenser, and Geothermal Water Well (G) were investigated. Hereafter, these five combinations are referred as HP-G, HP-S-U, HP-S-D, HP-G-S-U and HP-G-S-D. The thermal modeling of the aforementioned combinations in addition to baseline HP were developed and examined using an in-house computational code. To ensure that the input data used in the computational code are reliable, experiments were conducted to validate that the geothermal water temperature is higher than the ambient temperature in winter, in addition to confirming the analytical thermal modeling of the solar air heater. Numerical analyses and associated parametric studies revealed that the combination of Solar Air Heater (SAH) and a Geothermal Well Water (G) can efficiently increase the performance of the system by reducing the power needed to operate the compressor of HP. The gain in COP was found to be 48, 43, 81, 105 and 191 % for HP-G, HP-S-U, HP-S-D, HP-G-S-U and HP-G-S-D respectively. In addition, results revealed that the most efficient system is the (HP-G-S-D) for all simulated conditions and assumptions with a gain in COP that can reach up to 191 % in comparison to the baseline heat pump system.

This paper presents a simplified theoretical model for analyzing the temperature dynamics of photovoltaic (PV) modules. The model is built on an energy balance approach, considering solar irradiation as the primary energy input. It accounts for the conversion of solar power into electricity and the storage of thermal energy within the PV module, which subsequently increases the PV temperature leading to decay in its electrical efficiency. Heat loss from the top and bottom surfaces of the module, with variations for cooling techniques, is also included. The model is validated against three different experimental studies, demonstrating good agreement with the experimental temperature variations, with a maximum discrepancy ranging from 4 % to 16 %. This simplified model is then applied to two case studies: one representing typical daytime conditions and another simulating cold weather events. By comparing the PV temperature dynamics between the model and the experimental data, it is shown that the model accurately captures the dynamic response of the PV temperatures to changes in solar irradiation and ambient temperatures. Moreover, a parametric analysis is conducted to investigate the effects of key parameters on PV temperature and efficiency. Higher cooling rates from the bottom surface significantly boost electric power output, aligning closely with solar irradiance variations. Enhanced upper surface cooling, through increased convection, reduces PV temperature and thereby improves electric efficiency and power production. The PV temperature increases quasi-linearly with ambient temperature, especially at lower wind speeds, and decreases with higher wind speeds, eventually stabilizing at high values. Additionally, both ambient temperature and solar irradiance contribute to rising PV temperatures, with ambient temperature having a slightly greater effect. These findings underscore the critical role of cooling techniques in optimizing PV performance amidst varying environmental conditions.

This study delves into exploring and comparing various cooling technologies for PV panels, with a special focus on revealing the harmful effect of excessive heat absorption on solar energy efficiency. Effective temperature management and dissipation of excess heat are essential to protect the integrity of PV panels and improve power generation. With a strong emphasis on the importance of experimental setups, this comprehensive research examines the methodologies and cooling methods used across a wide range of experimental studies, illustrating the complexities of data collection and analysis. Supported by schematic illustrations depicting various experimental setups, this study demystifies the complexities inherent in distinct PV cooling methods. Furthermore, the research extends beyond experimentation to include a comprehensive examination of the energy and economic aspects associated with various cooling technologies, including the calculation and presentation of energy efficiency ratios. It is worth noting that the results confirm the superiority of passive cooling techniques, including heat sinks (43 %), PCM (25), evaporation techniques (36 %), and spray cooling systems (54 %), in contrast to active cooling methods, as indicated by their net energy efficiency ratios. Passive cooling is advantageous for its low maintenance and cost-effectiveness, whereas active cooling, though effective in hot climates and enhancing PV efficiency, incurs higher initial costs and maintenance requirements. The novelty of this research lies in its detailed classification of cooling techniques and the specific materials used for each method, coupled with a thorough examination of the measuring tools employed. Furthermore, this study includes a comprehensive comparative analysis based on energy and economic aspects, alongside the advantages and disadvantages of each cooling technique. These invaluable insights hold the potential to revolutionize the development of efficient and dependable cooling strategies for PV systems, thereby elevating the feasibility and sustainability of solar energy as a pivotal cornerstone in our future energy landscape.

Vortex generators are very effective tools in increasing heat transfer from one region to another, especially by convection, and appear to be a very promising concept to be coupled with heat recovery systems. On the other hand, Thermoelectric Generators (TEGs) are devices able to convert differences in temperature into electrical power using the Seebeck effect, the main advantage being working on high or even low differences in temperature. These TEG modules could be very effective tools in the hybridization of heat recovery systems. In this context, the present paper suggests an innovative system that couples three important energy axes together such as Heat recovery, TEGs, and Vortex generators. The current study employs a TEG in a rectangular channel to analyze the influence of the TEG on the flow and the effect of the effect of flow regime on producing electric power in order to assess the viability of this recently proposed concept. The investigation is conducted by varying the Reynolds number in a range of five values: 1000, 2000, 4000, 7000, and 10,000, applying six different configurations. Consequently, the results show that several factors affect the electrical power generated by TEG such as the emplacement, angle of attack, and absence/presence of vortex generators. On the other side, the heat recovered by the flow is affected by the TEG and Re, where the highest heat recovery is achieved at Re = 10,000 for configuration 4 with electrical power of 7.4 W, and for configuration 5 heat recovered by the flow of 1913 W. Besides, it was concluded that TEGs decreased the losses in both hot and cold sides by 1.42 times.

This paper introduces a novel empirical correlation designed to predict the overall heat transfer coefficient (U) in concentric tube heat exchangers. The study utilizes a comprehensive dataset of 2700 data points from CFD simulations, examining the impact of critical variables including hot and cold fluid Reynolds numbers (Reh, Rec), Prandtl numbers (Prh, Prc), and heat exchanger dimensions (tube hydraulic diameter Dh, annular space hydraulic diameter Dc, and overall length L). The analysis incorporates a range of fluid combinations in the tube and annular sections – air–air, air–water, water-air, and water–water – across Reynolds number ranges from 1000 to 20000, covering both laminar and turbulent flow regimes. The correlation was developed using the Adam optimizer to minimize the Weighted Mean Squared Error (WMSE), achieving an impressive convergence to an average prediction error of 6.7% compared to actual U values. The model categorizes flow into four distinct categories, each corresponding to a combination of flow patterns in the tube and annular spaces regimes – Laminar–Laminar, Laminar–Turbulent, Turbulent–Laminar, and Turbulent–Turbulent – integrating both hydrodynamic and thermal entry effects to enhance prediction accuracy. Rigorous error analysis revealed a median error of 5.18%, substantially outperforming existing models. Notably, 10% of the predictions deviate by less than 1%, with 90th percentile errors staying below 15%. Parameters were finely tuned through extensive numerical simulations, ensuring accurate application of the correlation across diverse operational conditions. The study concludes by highlighting the model’s potential to significantly enhance the design and efficiency of heat exchangers and proposes future enhancements to further improve its predictive accuracy.

One of the most effective ways to deal with the effects of the current global energy crisis is to reduce energy consumption and rely energy management strategies. As a result, waste heat/energy recovery might be a helpful option for decreasing energy costs and environmental effect. It entails finding a practical way to apply any engineering system’s wasted heat where the percentage of wasted heat is too high in global. In this context, waste hot water is a rich source of wasted energy that, if recovered, can significantly cut down on the amount of electricity used worldwide. Within this framework, the present research paper provides a thorough analysis of Waste Water Heat Recovery Systems (WWHRS) in terms of performance, design, tools and applications. In addition, it is highlighting the key elements associated with WWHRS, including the wastewater sources and approaches used in the literature for waste water heat recovery. Moreover, the present paper demonstrates the effect of the heat recovery from the drain waste water on economically and discuss the technical barriers to using WWHRS. It will be demonstrated that the feasibility of recovering heat from waste water could decrease significantly the cost of energy consumption for residential or industrial application. In addition, the main tools that are used for heat recovery systems is the heat exchanger where various types are used and the thermal performance are strongly affected by the choice of heat exchangers. Moreover, based on the literature review, it is shown that the methods of studying the thermal performance of the heat recovery system are experimental and/or numerical and in some cases the study is performed analytically. Finally, all discussed and presented studies demonstrate that the WWHRS has a significant benefits and could be considered for new residential construction.

A new concept of power generation from thermoelectric generators TEGs using the hot exhaust gas of boilers and a cold oil tank is proposed. The suggested concept consists of a flow of exhaust gas of boilers and cold oil in a tank separated by a plate comprising several TEGs in series. The oil tank at the bottom of the system constitutes the cold convection condition for the TEG plate and the upper hot exhaust gas flow constitutes the hot convection condition. Accordingly, a temperature gradient is created across the thickness of the TEGs, which play the role of a separation plate, and converted to an electrical power. To justify the feasibility of this new concept, a suitable thermal modeling is developed and the associated parametric analysis is carried out. The parametric analysis reveals that powers up to 622 W can be generated with a system having a space heating load of 200 kW, an exhaust gas duct height of 0.05 m, and a TEG plate length of 1 m. The temperature difference across each TEG module decreases exponentially when the TEGs plate length increases and decreases exponentially when the exhaust gas duct height increases.

This work concerns a comparative experimental study of cooling PV panels by free and forced convection and using finned plates. To this end, four prototypes are considered: the first one with a PV panel alone without cooling techniques, the second one consists of a PV panel with a rectangular finned plate attached to its rear surface and cooled by free convection, a third prototype consists of a PV panel cooled by forced convection by three axial-flow fans and a fourth prototype consists of a PV panel with a rectangular finned plate attached to its rear surface and cooled by forced convection by three axial-flow fans. Results showed an increase of 3.01% in the efficiency of the PV panel with finned plate under forced convection, an increase of 2.55% in the efficiency of the PV panel with finned plate under free convection and an increase of 2.10% in the efficiency of the PV panel under forced convection. Economic and environmental studies are also conducted and estimations of savings per year and amount of carbon dioxide emission reductions are provided.

In this paper, a unique method for using thermoelectric generators (TEGs) to generate electricity is introduced, a technique that makes use of a cold oil tank and hot exhaust gases from generators. A set of TEGs and an integrated cold oil tank are connected to the diesel generator as part of the suggested design. A pertinent thermal modeling was designed and a thorough parametric study was carried out to show the validity of this innovative concept. The parametric study has demonstrated that when the generator power and the thickness to thermal conductivity ratio of each TEG in the system are increased, the temperature differential in each TEG module and the power produced by the assembly of TEGs both exhibit linear increases. The length of the TEG plate and the height of the exhaust gas duct cause an exponential increase in the temperature differential across each TEG module. The TEG assembly's power output increases linearly with TEG surface length and decreases exponentially with exhaust gas duct height. Using an exhaust gas duct height of 0.05 m, and a TEGs plate length of 1 m, the parametric study showed that power generation of up to 2778 W is feasible under the predetermined circumstances of a diesel generator with an output of 125 kW. When compared to a conventional setup, the new hybrid generator in this scenario may be able to increase power generation by up to 2.22 %.

Cogeneration systems, exploiting waste heat sources, have emerged as crucial solutions in decreasing energy consumption and mitigating CO2 emissions across diverse industrial domains. This study delves into the innovative integration of multiple waste heat recovery (MWHR) mechanisms with thermoelectric generators (TEGs) within industrial contexts, with a specific emphasis on harnessing exhaust gas heat. Through meticulous investigation, six distinct configurations of TEG placement covering three unique systems were examined to expose their influence on overall system efficacy. Findings clarify a deep correlation between TEG positioning and system performance, with TEGs strategically positioned in close to heat sources, particularly along the inner walls of exhaust pipes, demonstrating the most auspicious outcomes in terms of power generation. Furthermore, the study reveals notable metrics, including a maximum power efficiency of 0.11 W per TEG and a water heat flow rate peaking at 5114 W. However, a comprehensive analysis underscores the imperative for interpreting the primary mechanisms governing TEG placement's impact on system performance, alongside defining the practical implications of the observed power efficiency and water heat flow rate. These empirical insights underscore the transformative potential of WHR-TEG interactions in optimizing energy utilization within industrial ecosystems, highlighting the request for further research actions aimed at implementation strategies and sustainability benchmarks.

Most heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems operate with one or more faults that result in increased energy consumption and that could lead to system failure over time. Today, most building owners are performing reactive maintenance only and may be less concerned or less able to assess the health of the system until catastrophic failure occurs. This is mainly because the building owners do not previously have good tools to detect and diagnose these faults, determine their impact, and act on findings. Commercially available fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) tools have been developed to address this issue and have the potential to reduce equipment downtime, energy costs, maintenance costs, and improve occupant comfort and system reliability. However, many of these tools require an in-depth knowledge of system behavior and thermodynamic principles to interpret the results. In this paper, supervised and semi-supervised machine learning (ML) approaches are applied to datasets collected from an operating system in the field to develop new FDD methods and to help building owners see the value proposition of performing proactive maintenance. The study data was collected from one packaged rooftop unit (RTU) HVAC system running under normal operating conditions at an industrial facility in Connecticut. This paper compares three different approaches for fault classification for a real-time operating RTU using semi-supervised learning, achieving accuracies as high as 95.7% using few-shot learning.

In light of the environmental concerns associated with the misuse of fossil fuels and the increasing consumption of energy, heat recovery systems have become an essential option for conserving energy. In this study, an innovative design that couples a highly efficient vortex generator-based heat exchanger with a new multi-drain water application for 48 accommodations is suggested. A numerical study is done by varying the flow rate and investigating the effect on the heat transfer, overall heat transfer, and thermal enhancement factor. Besides, the economic and environmental impacts of the system are studied to investigate its sustainability. Four types of input energy are studied: coal, diesel, gas, and electricity. Results show that the design provides a temperature increase of 3.5 to 7.5 °C of cold water, consequently, the daily environmental savings are up to 0.87 € (for gas), 1.74 € (for diesel), 4.63 € (for coal), 17.63 € (for electricity US) and 2.26 € (for electricity FR). Besides, the daily economical savings are up to 7.54 $, 8.63 $, 4.63 $, and 15.07 $ respectively with a payback period of around 0.61, 1.2, 1.42, and 2.89 years for gas, diesel, coal, and electricity respectively.

Utilizing a cooling technique can help prevent overheating, which can have a detrimental impact on the performance of solar panels. Instead of using a water cooling system that requires a pump, an alternative method uses the return air from a Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system often utilized in industrial settings. An air cooling system that uses the HVAC system's return air was previously recommended by the co-authors of the current study. Using numerical methods, they carried out a feasibility analysis and showed how a variety of parameters, such as the convection coefficient and the flow type (natural or forced), might affect the output power (efficiency) of the system. As a continuation of the previous study, the present study examines two cooling scenarios to further their past findings. Three different configurations for external flow were tested: cooling the upper and lower surfaces of the PV with exhaust air, installing a vortex generator at the leading edge of the lower surface while relying on natural convection for the upper part, and installing a vortex generator on both the upper and lower surfaces. The efficiency of the PV system increases from 11 % to 18 % with an increase in cooling demand from 0 to 160 kW with solar radiation of 500 W/m2. Efficiency was improved by generating turbulent flow at the leading edge of the panel. While using an internal flow on the bottom surface, the system's efficiency increased as the PV module's length increased.

In response to escalating energy demands, intensifying climate change concerns, and growing environmental degradation, the incorporation of renewable energy sources has gained traction across diverse sectors and regions. Concomitantly, scientists and engineers have recognized the potential of heat recovery systems in mitigating energy consumption, fostering further investigations into their practical applications. This study introduces an innovative design, integrating vortex generators into a concentric tube heat exchanger for heat recovery from a multi-drain water system that serves 48 accommodations. The design's sustainability is assessed by evaluating its economic, and environmental implications when paired with various renewable energy sources. Specifically, the aim is to quantify both cost and environmental savings engendered by implementing this design in a multi-drain application for a building with 48 accommodations.A numerical investigation elucidates the effects of flow rate variations on heat transfer, overall heat transfer, and thermal enhancement factors. Four types of renewable energy input - solar, wind, biomass, and hydropower - along with one storage system (pumped storage) are analyzed. The study reveals that the design implementation results in an elevation of cold water temperature between 3.5 and 7.5 °C. Furthermore, daily environmental savings for solar, wind, biomass, hydropower, and pumped storage are estimated to be 0.783 €, 0.339 €, 0.141 €, 0.027 €, and 1.356 €, respectively. Conversely, daily economic savings are calculated to be 3.62 €, 2.49 €, 5.05 €, 3.62 €, and 6.70 € for each corresponding energy source. This research underscores the viability of the proposed design in fostering sustainability through both environmental preservation and economic efficiency.

The enhancement of energy systems in industrial zones is attracting the attention of researchers from all over the world. At the same time, optimization and advancement in heat recovery systems are now generating major interest in the energy sector. In this context, the present study suggests a new multiple heat recovery system should be applied to an industrial thermal peeling press machine. The new system consists of multiple sources of energy: the heat excess in the chimney, the exhaust gas of the chimney, and the exhaust gas of the boiler. To proceed with testing the potential of the suggested system, a hydraulic thermal peel press machine in the wood industry undergoes different tests to achieve the best configuration that will enable this machine to reach its operational temperature when heating. Five test configurations are proposed, designed, and applied experimentally on this machine. Many parameters were effective during the experimental tests, such as water flow rate, ambient air temperature, and initial water temperature. It was found that the application of the multiple heat recovery system increases the rate of heating from around 7 °C/min to around 13 °C/min. In terms of energy and economy, the “chimney + boiler only” configuration proved to be the best system to apply during the fall and winter seasons.

Phase change materials proved their capability of enhancing buildings’ thermal inertia and improving occupants’ thermal comfort. More attention was triggered by the scientific community as the use of thermal energy storage systems kept evolving in the building sector. Previous experimental investigations examined the effectiveness of enhanced macro-encapsulated coconut oil bio-based PCM integrated with underfloor water radiant heating system in two similar small-scale test facilities that are modular. The current study focuses on performing comparative energetic and economic analyses of the system performance in regards to: weather conditions, PCM application, PCM type and properties, and PCM plates position at the underfloor. Results highlighted the effectiveness of utilizing coconut oil PCM in active floor, and passive wall and roof as load shifting and energy savings were obtained. It was shown that with the combination of active and passive systems, annual savings of 227 USD can be achieved; and by placing the PCM underneath the heating system, energy saving of 393.5 kWh was achieved corresponding to 169 USD annual savings. However, 32 USD annual saving was achieved by the system integrated with paraffin wax compared to that integrated with cocoa-nut oil PCM. Finally, the PCM capability in cost savings was reflected with the payback periods being evaluated as follows: 6.82 years for experiment 2, 6.75 years for experiment 3 (both encountering load shifting), and 3.94 years for experiment 4 (encountering energy saving).

Currently, the world is perceiving a change-over from its existing conventional energy sources to a future with optimized and inventive energy sources. Nowadays, the world is more and more oriented to the use of renewable energy sources to decrease the consumption form the conventional energy sources in particular the fuel energy. In addition, the use of renewable energy source decrease the impact of the conventional energy on the environment. For all these reasons, researchers are currently focusing on studies that implement and innovate methods for the purpose of optimizing and increasing the efficiency of existing renewable energy sources. Of the proposed methods are the hybrid systems. These systems are applicable in both residential and industrial sectors. However, hybrid systems can be applied to renewable energy, wind energy, fuel cell, Desalination, Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning, Engines, Electric Vehicles, Heat Pump, Redrying, PV cells, Engines, Solar Cells, and many other systems. In this context, the aim of the present paper is to provide a short recent review focusing on the types and applications of hybrid renewable energy systems and hybrid recovery energy systems that are applied in industrial and residential sectors. Moreover, the environmental impact, cost and the efficiency will also be presented and discussed.

Reducing energy consumption has its direct impact on the worldwide environmental status. Smart energy processes must be adopted in order to enhance the reduction capacity of energy usage. In this view, both renewable energy as well as heat recovery strategy has been used in a wide range of engineering applications. With this in mind, hot wastewater is considered as a valuable source of energy that could be recovered. The present paper illustrates an overall review on the waste water heat recovery systems (WWHR). All systems can be classified based on their structural configuration and application. It has been shown that under some conditions a 50% energy could be stored or recovered using a heat recovery system. In addition, all systems are considered as an economic as well as environmental effective methods.

As the world deviates towards sustainability in buildings due to massive increase in energy demand, the effective integration of Phase Change Material (PCM) in buildings gained substantial attention. The capability of PCM in enhancing the thermal performance of buildings relies heavily on the encapsulation technique used as it is in direct link with enhancement techniques required for upgrading thermo-physical, chemical and environmental PCM properties. The current study reviews shortly recent literature involving PCM integration in buildings and highlights different encapsulation techniques used for their proper active and passive incorporation. It also summarizes recent methodologies of properties enhancements prior to encapsulation. Preliminary results reflect the importance of proper encapsulation using the five distinct techniques: direct mixing, imbibing, shape-stabilization, macro-encapsulation and micro-encapsulation. Commercialization of macro-encapsulated PCMs is dominant over other techniques, where micro/nano-encapsulation technique is still limited and requires further study being the most promising.

The development of different renewable energy techniques has shown their ability in limiting the environmental crisis and meeting future needs. In recent years many efforts have been made in order to produce hybrid systems that work on integrating renewable energy systems with thermoelectric generators (TEGs) in order to increase energy efficiency. This review attempts to discuss and summarize different configurations of hybridizing TEGs with different renewable energy sources (solar, fuel cell, biomass) underlying the concepts and approaches used to reach these hybridizations. This review will give necessary information about this type of hybridization and encourage for future research due to its promising results.

Air heating is currently an essential part in many industrial and residential applications. One of its disadvantages is the higher energy consumption. Therefore, the renewable energy sources present now different solutions in order to decrease the energy consumption and to enhance the performance of existing systems by the hybridization. For these reasons the energy management at all levels became one of the most important research. In this context, the present paper proposes a design for a solar air heater that could be applied in more than one application. A modelling and an experimental study are presented. The presented solar air heating system allows reducing the energy consumption by replacing completely or partially an electrical air heating system. In addition, an in-house code is developed in order to simulate the suggested solar air heater and to study its performance. The experimental setup is implemented and designed to validate the developed code. Accordingly, a relative error of the modelling is estimated and it varies between 4 and 14%. Finally, the system is evaluated economically and environmentally by assessing the effect of replacing the electrical heating system of a fruit dryer by the suggested solar heating. It has been shown that adopting such system allows to save up to $106 per year and to reduce about 2045 kg of carbon dioxide emission.

In this paper, a contemporary concept that is based on dividing, by means of multi-passages, the water flow rate of water-air cross flow heat exchangers (HXs) is proposed. The thermal performance of water-air cross flow heat exchangers varies through a rationale function when the water flow rate changes. The new concept is based on dividing high flow rates of water entering a water-flow heat exchanger into several passages. This fragmentation prevents keeping the thermal performance from being nearly constant at high flow rates which lead to increasing the thermal performance globally. The feasibility of this concept was examined and had been proven through calculations on a double passage heat exchanger using an in-house two-dimensional computational code that had been developed and validated to evaluate the thermal performance of Heat Exchangers (HX) using a prescribed set of parameters. It was observed that the thermal performance increases rapidly with the water flow rates at low flow rates and become nearly constant at high flow rates. Furthermore, results revealed that the implementation of the novel concept can increase the thermal performance of a standard water-air cross flow heat exchanger by up to 25.7 %. The enhancement is more significant at high mean air velocities and low water flow rates.

The present article is discussing the performance of heat transfer enhancement (HTE) using a trapezoidal vortex generator in a Concentric Tube Heat Exchanger (CTHE) through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code ANSYS Fluent. Heat transfer and fluid flow analysis are conducted for various Reynolds numbers inside the tube and annular. The effects of Vortex Generators (VGs) are studied as well, and the turbulence flow is simulated using the k-ꞷ model. The analysis was made on four designs, where the VGs are placed in three different locations as follows: (case 0) no VGs, (case 1) VGs inside the tube, (case 2) VGs on the interface between annular and tube, and (case 3) VGs on the outer wall of the annular part. Accordingly, the overall heat transfer, heat transfer ratio, and heat transfer/power of each of the three cases with VGs are normalized to case 0 to study the effect of VGs on the flow and heat transfer enhancement. Results show that VGs are effective in all locations and cases, however, the highest improvement was spotted in case 1 at Reynolds number of 8000 for the cold fluid and Reynolds number of 2000 for the hot water, where the enhancement of heat transfer ratio was 97% for case 1, 92% for case 2 and 56% for case 3, whereas the thermal enhancement factor was 210% for case 1, 180% for case 2 and 142% for case 3.

In order to reduce the energy bills and pollution of buildings due to the use of conventional cooling systems, the present paper presents a parametric analysis and a case study concerning a newly proposed Multi Geothermal Cooling System that uses the cold soil to precool or cool air of several residences simultaneously. For that purpose, a thermal modelling and a related in-house code are developed. The modelling allows to predict the temperature of the precooled (or cooled) air in function of the return air temperature (hot flow) and the mass flow rate. The effect of other governing parameters has been evaluated, like the depth in soil, the tubes length and diameter. Modelling results have been confronted to experimentation showing a worst case error of 1.9 °C in the precooled air temperature. The work doesn't stop here. The predicted air temperature has been used in a numerical study of a multi geothermal cooling system with air-conditioning systems and different scenarios were simulated. Energy savings and reduction in CO2 emission have been evaluated for different coefficients of performance. Results are promising and relevant recommendations were put on firm roots.

Due to global warming and environmental issues in recent times, the world's concern is oriented nowadays toward discovering new renewable energy sources and energy management methods. Particularly, researchers are emphasizing on heat recovery technologies and applications in both residential and industrial sectors. While there are plenty of review papers in the literature on the subject matter, there is always a necessity to update the literature with the new advancements in the field. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to present a recent and complete systematic comprehensive review along with critical analysis and potential recommendations related to waste heat recovery (WHR) methodologies and applications. In methodologies, heat exchangers, Rankine cycle and thermoelectric generators are studied. Moreover, applications of WHR are discussed in automotive, and in both residential and industrial zones. Studies show that the optimization of heat recovery systems lead to significant magnitudes of energy savings. On the other hand, hybrid heat recovery systems prove to be the most trending research subject nowadays. For future work, the negative effect of backpressure should be taken into consideration when recovering energy from exhaust gases of engines and power generators, and more importance should be given to hybrid systems.

The automotive domain is a very good candidate for energy management, particularly due to the huge amounts of energy lost by heat through exhaust and water-cooling systems. This makes the optimization of vehicle cooling modules directly related to energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission. In this context, contemporary designs that employ diffusers between the forward-facing of an automobile and its heat exchanger subjected to airflow are presented in this work. The ultimate aim is to reduce the fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of vehicles. Based on the aforementioned design, the intensity of the air velocity would be decreased but distributed over a larger exchanger surface. Consequently, the velocity non-uniformity of the airflow upstream would decrease and therefore, the thermal performance would increase. The above-mentioned conclusion is a result of parametric numerical analysis and its associated numerical results that disclosed the enhancement of water-air heat exchanger thermal performance. To perform a parametric numerical analysis of the heat exchanger thermal performance for the new suggested configurations, a computational code was developed and validated to estimate the thermal performance for a known set of parameters. It was shown that for an automobile, with engine power ranging from 100–200 kW that is utilized for three hours a day and equipped with a diffuser, reduction of up to 2.91 kg (3.89 L) of gasoline consumption and 9.51 kg of CO2 emission can be achieved per day. The originality of the present work resides in the use of diffusers in cooling modules of vehicles, the thermal modeling of heat exchanger’s thermal performance along with its associated code, and the parametric analysis performed to prove the potential enhancement related to the use of diffusers in the cooling modules.

The thermal performance of fin-and-tube heat exchangers (HX) is a crucial aspect in a multitude of applications and fields; several design and operational parameters influence this performance. This study focuses on the issue of flow maldistribution and its effect on the HX thermal performance. For this purpose, an experimental setup is designed and implemented to emulate the conditions under which an automotive heat exchanger operates in regard to the non-uniform upstream airflow velocity distribution over the HX surface. The setup allows obtaining various configurations of airflow velocity non-uniformity of some desired mean velocity and standard deviation. The experimental results reveal that a higher degree of non-uniformity (higher standard deviation of the velocity distribution) causes an increased deterioration of the HX thermal performance. For example, at a water flowrate of 200 L/h and a mean airflow velocity of 2 m/s, increasing the standard deviation from 0 to 2 m/s (i.e., moving from the lowest to highest degrees of non-uniformity) causes a total deterioration of 27% in the performance (3.78 to 2.75 kW, respectively), which can also be observed in the increased level of outlet water temperature (53.8 to 58.2 °C, respectively). The obtained results confirm the numerical results reported in the literature.

This paper suggests a heat recovery concept that is based on preheating/precooling the cold/hot fresh outside air by means of the relatively hot/cold exhaust air in winter/summer weather conditions. To investigate the feasibility of such a concept, an experimental setup is established to simulate conditions similar to an All-Air HVAC system. The prototype consists of a 6.7-m3 air-conditioned chamber by means of a split unit of 5.3-kW capacity. The heat recovery module consists of a duct system that is used to reroute the exhaust air from a conditioned chamber to flow through the fin side of a fin-and-tube heat exchanger of crossflow type. At the same time, outside, fresh air is flowing through the tube side of the fin-and-tube heat exchanger. A parametric study is performed to assess the amount of heat that can be recovered by varying the mass flow rates on both the duct and heat exchanger sides. The results show that up to 200 W of power can be saved for an exhaust flow rate of 0.1 kg/s and a fresh, outdoor air flow rate of 0.05 kg/s. Environmentally speaking, this leads to a reduction in production of about 1 tons of CO2 per year when the system operates 24 h/day. From an economic point of view, the system is able to return its price after 1.5 years when it is used 24 h per day during hot days at 196-W thermal recovery, whereas it requires at least 6.3 years when it is used during cold days at a 60-W thermal recovery rate, which, in both cases, represents a duration less than the lifespan of an air conditioner.

The use of phase change material (PCM) as a thermal energy storage system integrated in new buildings, and as retrofits in old buildings, proved its merit as promising renewable energy source. Heating and cooling building applications of PCM have been studied by plenty of scientists, globally, on the basis of numerical and experimental analysis. The performed experiments have mainly focused on one application—active or passive—using permanent prototype design for a certain duration and weather condition. The current study is a new review that focuses on two complementary aspects: (1) Reviewing latest studies in PCM domain and assessing the thermal performance of implemented prototypes within the conducted PCM experimental studies, namely, the effect of the design on the number of acceptable variables and possible PCM applications; and (2) suggesting a new, advanced, flexible, and modular prototype designed to enable several applications of PCM to be adapted and combined within the model. It was implied that the new design allows different configurations that are lacking in the literature and serves for future PCM building applications of thermal analysis towards PCM integration optimization, as an attempt for transforming residential compartments into net zero energy buildings. The designed prototype overcomes the deficiencies found in previous reviewed experimental facilities.