US – Page 84 – TechConnect Briefs

Conformance Control through In-situ Gelation of Silica Nanoparticles

Rankin K.M., Nguyen Q.P., The University of Texas at Austin, US

Due to reservoir heterogeneities, oil recovery from fluid injection during secondary and/or tertiary recovery does not occur in an ideal piston-like displacement. Rather sweep efficiency can be much lower than 100% due to heterogeneities such [...]

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Adsorption from Microemulsions and Surfactant Micellar Solutions at Solid-Liquid, Liquid-Liquid and Gas-Liquid interfaces

Akkutlu Y., Bui K., Silas J.A., Zelenev A., Saboowala H., Texas A&M University, US

In enhanced oil and gas recovery, the production of hydrocarbons is influenced by the ability of injected surfactants to adsorb and to modify interfacial tension at different interfaces. It has been demonstrated that surfactant and [...]

Capturing and Using CO2 as Feedstock for Clean Chemical Processes Technologies

Demirel Y., University of Nebraska Lincoln, US

Chemical-looping technology for capturing CO2 are discussed with critical assessments of the circulating fluidized bed systems and the packed bed reactor with periodic switching of the feed streams of fuel and air. Beside, some industrial [...]

Commercial pilot for closed-loop wastewater treatment and biofuel production using microalgae

Atwood M., Novoveska L., Sundstrom E., Valdez P., Algae Systems LLC, US

In wastewater treatment, significant energy is used to dilute, discharge, or landfill valuable resources. This situation is untenable due to energy costs and global scarcity of clean water. Algae Systems has developed and patented a [...]

Enhanced fuel cell performance with modified Nafion® membranes

Krishnan L., Yeager G., Clark K., Kerr J., Soloveichik G., Miebach T., GE Global Research, US

The interaction of Nafion® 212 membrane with a carbocyclic fuel, decalin was studied. Decalin treatment of N212 improved vapor sorption and membrane conductivity. In addition a substantial increase of peak power in a H2/Air fuel [...]

Hydrogen Generation from Thermochemical Water-Splitting Using Core Shell Ni-Ferrite/Y2O3 Nanoparticles

Amar V.S., Shende R.V., South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, US

During thermochemical water-splitting process for hydrogen generation,ferritenanoparticles undergo significant grain growth that reduces their surface area and affect the porous morphology. Consequently, hydrogen volume generation diminishes with increase in thermochemical cycles. In order to mitigate [...]

Synthesis of Visible light Nanocomposites for H2 Production

Hussein A.M., Shende R.V., South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, US

Visible light active nanocomposites were synthesized by the sol-gel method using non-ionic surfactant as a template. Cr-doped ZrO2-modified coupled ZnO/TiO2 composite was thoroughly characterized for surface area, crystal phase, microstructure, elemental identification and band gap [...]

Low-cost Transmission, Storage, and Integration for Renewable-source Energy: Hydrogen and Ammonia C-free Fuel Systems with Underground Pipelines, Salt Caverns, and Liquid NH3 Tanks

Leighty B., The Leighty Foundation, US

Solar and wind are the lowest-cost renewable sources, but are intermittent. New, low-cost transmission and storage infrastructure will be needed as we convert the world’s largest industry -- energy -- from fossil to renewable sources, [...]

c-SI Wafer Development: A New Approach to Reduce Costs and Drive Efficiency

Zehavi S., Rockpoint PR, US

The global solar photovoltaic (PV) market is predicted to increase by double digits between 40-45 GW in 2014, according to a forecast from IHS Inc. And by 2015, new installations could reach as high as [...]

Improved Nanophotonics Simulation Tools for Light-Trapping in Photovoltaics

Shepard S., Rubaiat F., Louisiana Tech University, US

Models used in the field of nanoparticle enhanced light-trapping have a wide range of complexity. Often one simply calculates how much power is absorbed in a particular region e.g., a layer of silicon withing a [...]