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Recycled ceramics from industrial wastes, compared with traditional high-purity ceramics, present high market potential as refractory materials due to their low cost production process with very friendly environmental impacts. In order to study the feasibility of using recycled ceramics as the encapsulation material in the application of high temperature Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage system, this paper investigates the compatibility of recycled ceramics with three kinds of aluminium-silicon alloys at high temperature. The recycled ceramics explored are Cofalit from asbestos containing waste and steel slags. The study consists of a steady state thermal treatment of both ceramics in contact with the three different alloys at 1000°C for 100 hours, and a post instrumental characterization of ceramic samples by Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy Dispersive Spectrometry, to understand the chemical and structural transformation of each ceramics. Results show that Cofalit has chemical interactions with aluminium alloys, while steel slag presents an excellent corrosion resistance to molten aluminium alloys and is further recommended as an encapsulation material for molten aluminium alloys at high temperature. more...

At present there is an intense research for developing alternative sensible heat storage materials, such as natural rocks and recycled ceramics, able to work in concentrated solar power plants at high temperatures. This work demonstrates the potential of flint rocks as an economic and efficient filler material to be used with air as heat transfer fluid in packed bed storage system. Four facies of flint rocks were collected from south of France. To predict the performance of the storage system, crystalline structure, thermo-physical and thermo-mechanical properties of the studied rocks have been identified. For this purpose, the candidate rocks were subjected to extensive experimental characterizations under a series of thermal cycles. XRD, SEM, DSC/TGA, pycnometer, LFA, dilatometer, high temperature ultrasonic testing and nano-indenter method have been used to analyze these samples. Consequently, the 400 °C was identified as ideal temperature for the heat treatment process of flint. The obtained results from the four analyzed samples have been compared together and with currently used storage materials. The results gathered from this paper prove the potential of flint in terms of high density, good specific heat capacity and good thermal stability up to 400 °C to be used as filler material in energy storage applications relevant for low and medium temperature solar power plants. more...

International audience; The aim of this work was to highlight feasibility of a new approach to synthesize Activated-Carbon (AC)/TiO2 composite materials. The main interest of these materials is for pollutants removal applications thanks to their multi-functionality. AC/TiO2 composites were prepared by one-step mechanosynthesis route. Morphological and structural properties were investigated through SEM, EDS, XRD, and BET techniques. It was found that the preparation process leads to the formation of an aggregate shape homogenously composed AC/TiO2 powder with a narrow particles size distribution, which mean diameter was 3.75 μm. Initial component structural properties were found to be strongly affected by the process, resulting in significant changes of TiO2 crystallinity and AC microtexture. The introduction of 5 min pauses during the process was enough to totally preserve TiO2 phases, crystallinity, and AC microporous network. Composites multi-functional properties were investigated using batch adsorption and photodegradation experiments. Adsorption studies revealed that AC/TiO2 aggregates exhibit good adsorption capacity with caffeine and a maximum adsorbed amount of 353 mg.g−1. Photocatalytic experiments highlighted that AC/TiO2 presents a photo-oxidation ability. Photodegradation apparent kinetic rate fitted with a first-order law gave a value of 1.04 × 10-5 s-1 for the composite and ten times higher for pure TiO2. These results allowed to conclude that mechanosynthesis is an effective route to produce bi-functional AC/TiO2 composites with efficient adsorption capacity for water treatment applications. It also suggests the need of further radiative transfer studies to understand light scattering and absorption inside these materials, which could lead to some improvement of these promising materials. more...

Recycled ceramics from industrial wastes, compared with traditional high-purity ceramics, present high market potential as refractory materials due to their low cost production process with very low environmental impacts. However, there still exists a research gap of how recycled ceramics behave while in contact with liquid metal. In order to study the feasibility of using recycled ceramics as the encapsulation material in the application of high temperature Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage system, this paper investigates the compatibility of recycled ceramics with three kinds of aluminium-based alloys at high temperature, with a comparison to the corrosion resistant behaviour of alumina. The recycled ceramics explored include Cofalit from asbestos containing waste, blast furnace slags from steel production, and coal fly ashes sintered ceramics from incineration plants. The study consists of a steady state thermal treatment of ceramic samples in contact with the three different alloys at 1000°C for 100 hours, and a post instrumental characterization of ceramic samples by Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy, Energy Dispersive Spectrometry and X-ray diffractometer, to understand the chemical and structural transformation of the ceramics. Results demonstrate that Cofalit shows chemical stability with Al99% but instability with AlSi5% and AlSi12%. Blast furnace slag presents quite good thermochemical stability towards molten AlSi5% and AlSi12%. Coal fly ashes sintered ceramics are highly interactive towards all three aluminium alloys. In conclusion, besides alumina, Cofalit is recommended as alternative encapsulation material for molten Al99%, while blast furnace slag being recommended for molten AlSi5% and AlSi12%. NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore) Accepted version more...

The major advantage of concentrating solar power before photovoltaic is the possibility to store thermal energy at large scale allowing dispatchability. Then, only CSP solar power plants including thermal storage can be operated 24 h/day using exclusively the solar resource. Nevertheless, due to a too low availability in mined nitrate salts, the actual mature technology of the two tanks molten salts cannot be applied to achieve the expected international share in the power production for 2050. Then alternative storage materials are under studies such as natural rocks and recycled ceramics made from industrial wastes. The present paper is a review of those alternative approaches. more...

In this paper, a mathematical model is developed to study the behavior of thermal energy storage (TES) under operation in the particular case of Adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage (A CAES). The A CAES consists of storing the available extra electrical energy of the electricity network in a form of compressed air (in a cavern) to discharge it during peak periods. The TES sub-system is used to charge and discharge the corresponding heat of compression, leading to a quasi adiabatic mode and an increase in the overall electricity storage efficiency (roughly from 50 to 70%) compared to diabatic CAES. The mathematical model has been converted into a computer simulation program with all the effective parameters of heat transfer in the storage reservoir. This model used to define a geometry reservoir able of storing a given power and restore it while maintaining a required temperature level at the output of unit. The influence of the input and output parameters on the storage efficiency is studied. The results illustrate the behavior of the storage reservoir under dynamic mode. more...