Artificial Trees to Harness Solar Energy and Filter the Air
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SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING ARTIFICIAL TREES TO HARNESS SOLAR ENERGY AND FILTER THE AIR Salma Moustaid Dr. Hassane Darhmaoui and Dr. Naeem Nizar Sheikh 16th, April 2018 © SCHOOL OF SCIENCE & ENGINEERING – AL AKHAWAYN UNIVERSITY ARTIFICIAL TREES PROVIDING SOLAR ENERGY AND AIR FILTRATION Capstone Report Student Statement: I, Moustaid Salma, hereby affirm that I have applied ethics to the design process and in the selection of the final proposed design. And that I have held the safety of the public to be paramount and have addressed this in the presented design wherever may be applicable. _____________________________________________________ Salma Moustaid Approved by the Supervisor(s) _____________________________________________________ Dr. H. Darhmaoui & Dr. N. N. Sheikh 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 LIST OF TABLES 4 LIST OF FIGURES 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 7 ABSTRACT 8 INTRODUCTION 9 BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT 12 MOROCCAN PROJECTS IN THE RENEWABLE ENERGIES FIELD 17 EIA Sankey diagram for Morocco 17 Energy laws in Morocco 19 Energy Related Institutions in Morocco 19 NALIDA POWER TREE 22 Specifications of the intelligent solar tree 22 Optional Specifications 23 Benefits 23 SCOPE OF THIS PROJECT 25 ENGINEERING STUDY 26 SOLAR PANELS 26 Tilt angle and global irradiation using PVGis: 32 INDUSTRIAL FILTERING COMPARATIVE STUDY 35 The ten most common atmospheric pollutants 37 How do filters work 39 Types of Air filters 40 Rochling Automotive filter 41 Atlas Copco Air filters 42 Minimum efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) parameters 46 ClimeWorks filters 47 Vivex MCAC filters 47 Carbon Engineering 48 Our potential air filter 50 Wind Speed in Marrakech 51 NATURAL FILTERING MECHANISMS 53 Activated Carbon Filters 54 Types of activated carbon 54 2 POWER NEED 57 Total load calculation 58 Current calculation 58 Required Storage 59 Temperature effect on batteries: 60 ELECTRIC CIRCUIT 62 PASSIVE COOLING SYSTEM 63 Mechanism of passive cooling system 63 Types of wind catchers 64 Canadian Well - passive cooling system 66 Earth-Air heat exchanger for passive air conditioning 67 FINANCIAL STUDY 69 INITIAL INVESTMENT 69 Lifetime 72 Maintenance 72 BENCHMARKING 73 LEVELIZED COST OF ELECTRICITY 74 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY 75 MITIGATION COST 75 CARBON FOOTPRINT 76 STEEPLE ANALYSIS 77 SOCIO-CULTURAL 77 TECHNOLOGICAL 77 ENVIRONMENTAL 77 ECONOMIC 78 POLITICAL 78 LEGAL 79 ETHICAL 79 CONCLUSION 80 FUTURE WORK 81 REFERENCES 82 APPENDIX A: TABLE OF FUNCTIONALITIES 86 APPENDIX B: PVSYST SIMULATION 89 3 LIST OF TABLES Table 2: Polycrystalline solar cells specifications Table 3: PVGIs monthly irradiance data Table 4: Primary PM sources classification Table 5: typical size distribution of atmospheric dust Table 6: Detailed list of 10 major atmospheric pollutants Table 7: Difference between Adsorption and absorption Table 8: Specifications of activated carbon filters Table 9: Calculating load power Table 10: Effective capacity as a function of discharge time Table 11: Design service life of Victron batteries under float service Table 12: Cost of electric part Table 13: Activated carbon cost Table 14: Compressed air filter cost Table 15: Cost of tree construction Table 16: Description of lifetime for each part of the tree Table 17: list of competitors and the cost of their trees Table 18: CO2 emissions in Morocco in 2007 4 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Spiralling Phyllataxy method of solar tree Figure 2: Piezoelectricity used in artificial trees Figure 3: Palm trees in Dubai Figure 4: 100 meters Chinese tower to purify air from smog Figure 5: Sankey Diagram for Morocco year 2011 Figures 6 & 7: Existing designs of Nalida tree Figure 8: solar irradiance in Morocco Figure 9: Max, min and average temperature in Marrakech throughout the year Figure 10: sun hours and sun days in Marrakech Figure 11: daily solar radiation averaged per month in Marrakech Figure 12: Polycrystalline conventional solar panels Figure 13 and 14: front and back view of our solar leafs Figure 15: Different values for irradiance throughout the year in Marrakech Figure 16: Optimal tilt angle for our solar panels. Figure 17: size and type distribution in micrometers of PM Figure 18: pyramid showing balance of air filter attributes Figure 19: parts of a car filter Figure 20: list of contaminants that Atlas Copco filters focus on capturing Figure 21: different designs of air compressed filters Figure 22: mounting of air compressed filters with the compressor Figure 23: H-series compressed air filter Figure 24: Illustration of Climeworks filters’ mechanism Figure 25: Carbon Engineering method of capturing CO2 Figure 26: Steps of CO2 capture, purification and compression Figure 27: graph showing wind speed in Marrakech throughout the year 2016 Figure 28: Jamee-Lfna square in Marrakech Figure 29: Picture of an activated carbon filter 5 Figure 30: buck-boost converter circuit Figure 31: Recommended charge voltage Figure 32: Victron Gel battery Figure 33: Devices for solar tree electric circuit Figure 34 & 35: wind-catcher to cool the hot air using a qanal (left) and water basin (right) Figure 36 & 37: Wind catchers used a long time ago as a passive cooling system tower Figure 38: Direct wind entry design for wind catchers Figure 39: solar chimney passive cooling system. Figure 40: Design of a canadian well system implemented in Rabat Figure 41: Canadian well design in Burkina Faso Figure 42: Sketch of top view of Solis tree Figure 43: Sketch for profile view of Solvis tree Figure 44: Foundation for solar tree (1m 20 cm) × (1m 20 cm) × (1m 20 cm) Figure 45, 46 & 47: different designs of solar trees: eTree (left) Smart Palm (center), Solvis Solar (right) 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I am grateful to Allah the most merciful and helpful. Second, I am genuinely appreciative to my two dear supervisors Dr. Hassan Darhamoui and Dr. Naeem Nisar Sheikh for their continuous help and instructive feedback. My deep gratitude goes to Mr Noureddine Tabete who is an amazing supervisor and a dear uncle. All the credits for the initial idea of this project and the initial ambitious road map, go to him and the Nalida Power team. My thankfulness is also to my roommates Midri, Oumnya, Bougreen and Khayat with whom I shared the best and worst moments of my AUI years without forgetting other friends. Last but not least, I would love to thank my parents for their support and heart warming surprises and sweet words; even that they always encourage me to sleep enough while expecting me to study deeper. To my wonderful sisters Soukaina and Ibtihal, I would love to thank them from the bottom of my heart on their everlasting love and affection. And to my little brother I would say: “you are my inspiration and my source of happiness”. 7 ABSTRACT The objective of this project is to contribute to the work already started by Nalida Power, a startup working in the renewable energies field to invest in urban equipment since 2017. It is part of any project to make a preliminary study concerning its feasibility. There are many aspects to consider in order to get a complete view about our project before deciding upon the best combination of parts. The technical attention in this project is divided between the electric aspect and filtration aspects of our solar tree. This report will start with giving an overview of the “state of the art” around the world. Then a description of our suggested tree starting with solar panels specifications, their types and the polycrystalline type used in our case is also included. Later, a comparison study is done to present the different filters with different uses and finally the most optimal solution for our case. Followed by a financial study so as to know the cost of the entire project and the levelized cost of electricity. Last but not least an environmental study is held in order to discover the mitigation cost and the advantages of our project. To end up with a conclusion on the best optimum design for our solar tree with the potential features and specifications to attract world wide designers and investors. Keywords: solar energy, solar cell, air filters, artificial tree. 8 INTRODUCTION Morocco is aiming to produce 40% of its energy by 2020 through renewable energies, and 52% by 2030. Our country has done a tremendous work so far in the domain of renewable energies, and now it is time for institutions, administrations, private sector and each individual to act responsibly in order to contribute in this development towards a cleaner future. Both private and public sectors are acting towards this change, though there is much more to be done in the private sector. The ongoing projects and those already achieved together with financial and taxes incentives play a huge role in bringing motivation to citizens regarding the use of renewable energies. There is nothing that has polluted our planet Earth more than the industrial revolutions starting early at the beginning of the 18th century and what came after that related to the invention of combustion engines, different power plants for different purposes and mostly the plastic industry that has been the most polluting among all. There are two main actions that we, humans can do: the first one is reducing the amount of pollutants that already exist in the atmosphere like the nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), particulate matter (PM), and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) accounts for only 0.04% of the pollutants in the atmosphere and takes the blame for the rising levels of temperature. The second thing we can do to help our planet is to switch to non-conventional energy sources that are not substantially depleted by continued use, clean by not entailing significant pollutant emissions, and do not involve the perpetuation of substantial health hazards. Issues related to fossil fuels have covered environmental hazards, mining accidents and mostly rising prices which makes them just not the right source of energy to use nowadays.