Blue Energy: Current Technologies for Sustainable Power Generation from Water Salinity Gradient
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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/259522017 Blue energy: Current technologies for sustainable power generation from water salinity gradient ARTICLE in RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS · MARCH 2014 Impact Factor: 5.51 · DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2013.11.049 CITATIONS DOWNLOADS VIEWS 7 155 505 4 AUTHORS, INCLUDING: Zhijun Jia Baoguo Wang Chinese Academy of Sciences Tsinghua University 19 PUBLICATIONS 46 CITATIONS 13 PUBLICATIONS 167 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Available from: Zhijun Jia Retrieved on: 09 September 2015 Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 31 (2014) 91–100 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser Blue energy: Current technologies for sustainable power generation from water salinity gradient Zhijun Jia a,b,c, Baoguo Wang a,b,n, Shiqiang Song a,b, Yongsheng Fan a,b a The State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China b Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China c National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner Production Technology, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100084, China article info abstract Article history: “Salinity energy” stored as the salinity difference between seawater and freshwater is a large-scale Received 7 June 2013 renewable resource that can be harvested and converted to electricity, but extracting it efficiently as a Received in revised form form of useful energy remains a challenge. With the development of membrane science and technology, 2 September 2013 membrane-based techniques for energy extraction from water salinity, such as pressure-retarded Accepted 18 November 2013 osmosis and reverse electro-dialysis, have seen tremendous development in recent years. Meanwhile, many other novel methods for harvesting exergy from water mixing processes, such as electrochemical Keywords: capacitor and nano-fluidic energy harvesting systems, have been proposed. In this work, an overview and Power extraction state-of-the-art of the current technologies for sustainable power generation from the water salinity Water salinity gradient are presented. Characteristics of these technologies are analyzed and compared for this Pressure-retarded osmosis particular application. Based on these entropic energy extracting methods, the water salinity, as the Reverse electro-dialysis “ ” Electric double-layer capacitor blue energy , will be another source of renewable energy to satisfy the ever-growing energy demand of Faradic pseudo-capacitor human society. & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction.........................................................................................................91 2. Theoretical analysis of available work from salinity mixing process . 92 3. Methods for harvesting energy from salinity difference . 92 3.1. The pressure-retarded osmosis . 92 3.2. Reverse electro-dialysis (RED). 94 3.3. Electric double-layer capacitor . 96 3.4. Faradaic pseudo-capacitor . 97 3.5. Other technologies. 99 4. Conclusion and outlooks . 99 Acknowledgements . 99 References..............................................................................................................99 1. Introduction global energy consumption [1]. Harvesting clean energy from the environment to satisfy the ever-growing energy demand of the More and more renewable energies are required for reducing human society is of great importance for the survival and sustain- pollution, carbon dioxides emission, and the fossil energy part in able development of the human civilization [2,3]. Technologies for harvesting renewable energy such as solar, wind and geothermal sources have attracted great attentions and have developed n Corresponding author at: Tsinghua University, The State Key Laboratory of extensively recently. The “salinity energy” stored as the salinity Chemical Engineering, Haidian District, Beijing 100084, China. Tel.: þ86 10 62788777; fax: þ86 10 62770304. difference between seawater and freshwater is another large-scale E-mail address: [email protected] (B. Wang). renewable energy source that can be exploited [4,5]. When a river 1364-0321/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.11.049 92 Z. Jia et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 31 (2014) 91–100 runs into a sea, spontaneous and irreversible mixing of freshwater energy change of the two solutions, is obtained at xE0.4 and is and seawater occurs, thereby increasing the entropy of the system. equal to ΔGE À851.9 J LÀ1. This entropy change can be utilized to convert part of the thermal To calculate the maximum extractable energy per unit volume energy of the fluids into electrical energy [6]. It is calculated that of freshwater, which is considered as the limiting resource in this from each cubic meter of river water that flows into the sea, 2.3 MJ process, the Gibbs free energy of mixing is plotted with respect of of free energy is dissipated in the process, some portion of which the volume of river water consumed in Fig. 1(B). For the excess of can be harvested [6,7]. Worldwide, the potential for energy seawater, the maximum energy extractable is ΔGE À2500 J LÀof extraction from this “salinity potential” resource (for all river freshwater (xE1). This means that a power plant processing effluents combined) amounts to around 2.42.6 TW, close to 400 m3 sÀ1 of freshwater could produce power up to 1 GW. present-day global electricity consumptions [7,8]. Since the Fig. 1(C) shows the theoretical power output of the main rivers 1950s, it has been recognized that it is possible to interpose a over the world by the mixing process. It is apparent that it flows suitable device between the flow of freshwater and saltwater, in with tremendous energy in the mixing process when these rivers order to exploit the free energy stored in the salinity difference as a run into the sea. Amazon is the largest river in the world and its completely renewable energy source, so-called “blue energy”. annual average flow rate reaches 179,000 m3/s. When it runs into Already described techniques are pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO), the sea, the power produced in the mixing process will be up to reverse electro-dialysis (RED), concentration electrochemical cells 437.5 GW, which is 31 times of the installed capacity of Itaipu and devices exploiting difference in vapor pressure [4,5,9–12]. Hydroelectric Power Station, the largest hydroelectric power Recently this “blue energy” has received renewed interest; station in South America. At the estuary of Yangzi River in China, many new techniques were employed for the energy extraction a power output of 85 GW, about 4.7 times that of Sanxia Hydro- from the salinity difference, such as electrochemical capacitor and electric Power Station, runs away with the freshwater. If the nano-fluidic diffusion techniques [6,13,14]. Hence, this review exergy can be harvested effectively, it will provide sufficient provides an overview of the current status, and gives some energy for the development of human society. opinions about the main challenges and future trends of these technologies for harvesting energy from the entropy change. It is anticipated that this review will attract more attentions for this 3. Methods for harvesting energy from salinity difference renewable “blue energy”. 3.1. The pressure-retarded osmosis 2. Theoretical analysis of available work from salinity The osmosis pressure difference between river water and mixing process seawater is about 23 atm under ordinary conditions, equivalent to the hydrostatic head of 231 m dam [1,18–21]. Utilizing specific The “blue energy” that can be extracted from the mingling of devices, the large-scale salinity energy can be converted to freshwater and seawater is best illustrated by its reverse process mechanical energy or electricity directly. “desalination”–energy is required to extract freshwater from Pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) is a novel opinion with a long seawater [15,16]. Therefore, in theory the reverse of any desalina- history, which can extract salinity-gradient energy by using semi- tion process should release energy. The theoretical non-expansion permeable membranes to allow the transport of water from a low work that can be produced from mixing a relatively concentrated concentration solution (such as river, brackish or wastewater) into salt solution s (seawater) and a dilute salt solution r (river water), a high concentration draw solution (seawater, brine water). Sea- at constant pressure p and absolute temperature T, to give a water can also be used as the low-concentration solution with brackish solution m,isdefined by the Gibbs energy of mixing brines produced from seawater desalination as the draw solution. ΔmixG [7,17]: The migration of water from the low-concentration solution to the high-concentration solution could increase the static energy ΔmixG ¼ Gm ðGs þGrÞð1Þ of the high-concentration side which can be utilized to promote Assuming that solutions are ideal dilute, the Gibbs energy of the the turbine. Theoretically the maximum extractable energy during mixing process can be calculated just from the change in molar the irreversible mixing of a dilute stream with saline draw Δ ¼ entropy (i.e., mixH 0): solutions is substantial, ranging from 0.75 kWh to 14.1 kWh per – ΔmixG ¼ðns þnrÞTΔmixSm