The urgent demand for cost‐effective energy storage devices for large‐scale applications has led to the development of several beyond‐lithium energy storage systems (EESs). Among them, calcium‐ion ...batteries (CIBs) are attractive due to abundant calcium resources, excellent volumetric and gravimetric capacities of Ca metal anode, and potential high energy density coming from the multivalent feature of Ca‐ion. Therefore, the exploration of CIBs electrode materials and the construction of CIBs devices are gaining increasing research interest. Relevant publications cover a wide range of materials by both theoretical and experimental investigations, whereas the performances of rocking‐chair CIBs have been unsatisfactory. Meanwhile, multi‐ion strategies using more than one ion as the charge carrier have been demonstrated to be feasible and promising options in realizing room temperature CIBs. The summary and reflection of previous studies would provide useful information for future exploration and optimization. In this circumstance, this paper overviews the reported CIBs electrode materials, including both anode and cathode, and presents the latest progress of multi‐ion strategies in CIBs. Fundamental challenges, potential solutions, and opportunities are accordingly proposed, mimicking other more mature EESs. This review may promote the development of electrode materials and accelerate the construction of low‐cost and high‐performance CIBs.
Ca‐ion based technologies are attractive for low‐cost, high‐performance energy storage, while their development is currently far from practical applications. An overview of the key electrode materials for Ca2+ storage and a comprehensive insight of promising optimization strategies such as the multi‐ion strategy are critical to promote further development of Ca2+ technologies.
Glycogen storage diseases (GSDs) type I (GSDI) and type III (GSDIII), the most frequent hepatic GSDs, are due to defects in glycogen metabolism, mainly in the liver. In addition to hypoglycemia and ...liver pathology, renal, myeloid, or muscle complications affect GSDI and GSDIII patients. Currently, patient management is based on dietary treatment preventing severe hypoglycemia and increasing the lifespan of patients. However, most of the patients develop long-term pathologies. In the past years, gene therapy for GSDI has generated proof of concept for hepatic GSDs. This resulted in a recent clinical trial of adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene replacement for GSDIa. However, the current limitations of AAV-mediated gene transfer still represent a challenge for successful gene therapy in GSDI and GSDIII. Indeed, transgene loss over time was observed in GSDI liver, possibly due to the degeneration of hepatocytes underlying the physiopathology of both GSDI and GSDIII and leading to hepatic tumor development. Moreover, multitissue targeting requires high vector doses to target nonpermissive tissues such as muscle and kidney. Interestingly, recent pharmacological interventions or dietary regimen aiming at the amelioration of the hepatocyte abnormalities before the administration of gene therapy demonstrated improved efficacy in GSDs. In this review, we describe the advances in gene therapy and the limitations to be overcome to achieve efficient and safe gene transfer in GSDs.
Electricity storage (ES) has the potential of offering several energy system benefits but different technologies also offer different services which can be traded on different markets. In this study, ...a combined assessment methodology is proposed, enabling a benchmark comparison of stationary electricity storage technologies for different time and system scales, considering their technical, economic and environmental performance.
The results show that for short time scale (0.01 h), battery stands out with an advantage in terms of levelised costs, while Advanced Adiabatic (AA-) and Isothermal (I-) Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) have relatively low life cycle Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. For the medium time scale (4.5 h), I-CAES shows the best performance for small scale systems, while for large scale systems, Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS) and AA-CAES show best performance. In our long time scale (seasonal) scenario, Power-to-gas-to-power (P2G2P) has lower levelised costs due to low or avoided investment for storage of gas, but higher GHG emissions than other technologies. If existing reservoirs can be utilized for PHS, it can be economically competitive to P2G2P for seasonal storage. However, storage capacity required for seasonal storage should also be taken into account, for which P2G2P has more flexibility.
•Stationary electricity storage assessment combining techno-economic and life cycle assessment.•Current and future performance variations, type and price of electricity stored were considered.•Performances of storages were investigated under different time- and system-scales.•Storage technologies perform quite differently based on applications and the electricity stored.•Recommendations were made in terms of preference of technologies for different applications.
Implementation of the hydrogen economy for emission reduction will require storage facilities, and underground hydrogen storage (UHS) in porous media offers a readily available large‐scale option. ...Lack of studies on multiphase hydrogen flow in porous media is one of the several barriers for accurate predictions of UHS. This paper reports, for the first time, measurements of hysteresis in hydrogen‐water relative permeability in a sandstone core under shallow storage conditions. We use the steady state technique to measure primary drainage, imbibition and secondary drainage relative permeabilities, and extend laboratory measurements with numerical history matching and capillary pressure measurements to cover the whole mobile saturation range. We observe that gas and water relative permeabilities show strong hysteresis, and nitrogen as substitute for hydrogen in laboratory assessments should be used with care. Our results serve as calibrated input to field scale numerical modeling of hydrogen injection and withdrawal processes during porous media UHS.
Plain Language Summary
Hydrogen storage facilities will need a ramp‐up when the hydrogen share in the future energy mix increase. Large‐scale hydrogen storage can be implemented in empty hydrocarbon fields or ground water reservoirs. Hydrogen storage in such media involve complex interactions with native rocks and fluids, and injection and withdrawal are typically described by flow functions. Relative permeability is one of the key flow functions that describe how easily hydrogen can flow through porous media in the presence of other fluids. In underground storage, hydrogen is cyclically injected and withdrawn multiple times, and its relative permeability may differ between these two processes, described as hysteresis. In this paper, we investigate hydrogen relative permeability in the laboratory and match with results from numerical simulations. We find that hydrogen relative permeability is different for injection and withdrawal and is also different from that of nitrogen. Our results are directly applicable in computer simulators that predict hydrogen storage efficiency.
Key Points
Steady state measurements of hydrogen‐water relative permeability
Numerical history matching needed for extrapolation
Strong hysteresis observed between drainage and imbibition
•Database-based market analysis of stationary battery storage systems in Germany.•185,000 home storage systems with a cumulative battery capacity of 1,420 MWh in 2019.•68 large-scale storage systems ...with a cumulative battery capacity of 620 MWh in 2019.•Average specific storage prices reach from 700 €/kWh to 1,100 €/kWh in 2019.•Open access large-scale storage system database allows further individual analyzes.
This short communication paper provides an update on our original battery storage paper for the year 2019 1. It contains detailed information about the markets for home storage systems (HSS), industrial storage systems (ISS), and large-scale storage systems (LSS) in Germany. The HSS market has continued its growth of the last few years. We estimate that 60,000 new HSS, with a total battery power of around 250 MW and storage capacity of 490 MWh, were installed in 2019. This adds up to a total of 185,000 HSS, with a power of about 750 MW and storage capacity of 1,420 MWh by the end of 2019. The specific prices of lithium-ion HSS have fallen by more than 50% in recent years. From 2018 to 2019, prices for mid-sized HSS between 5 kWh and 10 kWh decreased by 6%, to around 1,100 €/kWh. The new database of the German Federal Network Agency, “MaStR”, already shows over 90,000 HSS registrations in total by May 1st 2020 and is growing continuously. It also yields some insights into the ISS market, which thus far has mostly been uncharted. Approximately 700 ISS with storage capacities greater than 30 kWh have already been registered. The registered ISS add up to a cumulative power of around 27 MW and storage capacity of over 57 MWh by the end of 2019. However, the current state of the ISS database still does not allow for comprehensive estimates of the overall German ISS market. With respect to the LSS market, in 2019, only nine new LSS projects came into operation with a battery power of 54 MW and storage capacity of 62 MWh, indicating a strong decline in market growth. The new installations add up to a total of 68 LSS in operation, with an accumulated power of 460 MW and a capacity of about 620 MWh. These mainly operate in the market of frequency containment reserve (FCR). FCR prices have been decreasing in recent years to less than 1,500 €/MW/week in 2019. At the beginning of 2020, the prices dropped to around 1,000 €/MW/week, which makes the market increasingly unattractive to new participants. Furthermore, the German Federal Network Agency confirmed three pilot projects of large-scale so-called “grid boosters” with 100 MW / 100 MWh (two projects) and 250 MW/250 MWh (one project) that are expected to commence operation in 2022. These systems will boost the LSS market significantly. In terms of storage technologies, lithium-ion batteries remain the leading technology in all BSS markets.
•A low-temperature Compressed CO2 Energy Storage system was proposed in this paper.•Conventional and advanced exergy analyses on the system were conducted.•The two methods showed that compressor ...should be firstly improved.•Advanced exergy analysis revealed that HEX3 had a higher priority than other HEXs.•The exergy efficiency difference between real and unavoidable conditions was 21.4%.
Compressed Carbon dioxide Energy Storage (CCES) system is a novel energy storage technology, which provides a new method to solve the unstable problem of renewable energy. Since the CCES system using low-temperature thermal energy storage can avoid the technical difficulties from high-temperature thermal energy storage, the low-temperature Compressed Carbon dioxide Energy Storage (LT-CCES) system has more obvious application feasibility compared with the high-temperature energy storage system. As the research on energy conversion, transfer, and loss in CCES system under low-temperature heat storage is still missing, while it is important to understand the energy losses for the further optimization of this kind of system, in this paper, the conventional exergy analysis and advanced exergy analysis were utilized to analyze the thermodynamic characteristics of a LT-CCES system consisting of CO2 Brayton cycle, low-temperature thermal energy storage and cold energy storage, whose thermal energy storage temperature is below 200 °C. As the advanced exergy analysis takes into account the correlation between system components as well as the technical limitations of each component, exergy destruction can be split into more detailed parts (i.e., avoidable exergy destruction, unavoidable exergy destruction, endogenous exergy destruction, and exogenous exergy destruction), which makes the results of the advanced exergy analysis different from those of conventional exergy analysis. The results showed that, advanced exergy analysis pointed out that HEX3 should be given priority as endogenous avoidable exergy destruction in HEX3 was the largest, while the results from the conventional exergy analysis showed that HEX1 should be given priority. For all the components, the two methods indicated that the compressor should be given the highest priority for improvement, followed by the turbine. Besides, as the total exergy efficiency of the system was 55.3% under the real condition and the total exergy efficiency was 76.7% under the unavoidable condition, there was still room for improvement of the system. In brief, based on the advanced exergy analysis method, the real component that should be paid attention can be determined, which gives the designers a more profound understanding of exergy destruction in the LT-CCES system.
•Addition of nanoparticles, with specific volume concentration, enhanced the thermal conductivity of base PCM.•Application of NePCMs in buildings reduced the energy consumption.•Use of NePCMs ...enhanced the thermal management of modern electronics.•The use of NePCMs in smart textiles improved the thermal stability and durability.
Phase change materials (PCMs) play a prime role in the development of sustainable energy and engineering systems for viable future, with their remarkable phase change properties. The heat energy absorbed and released by PCMs, over a specific temperature range, has become a prominent contender in many engineering applications that encompass thermal, solar, electronic, battery thermal management, textiles, heat pipes and food packaging. Apart from having high latent heat storage capacity, PCMs possess low thermal conductivity, which requires nanoparticles to be incorporated. Effectiveness of thermal conductivity of PCM can be increased by adding nanoparticles and resulting material is known as Nanoparticle-enhanced PCM (NePCM). This paper presents the comprehensive review on the preparation techniques as well as the applications of NePCMs in various fields. It is expected that this review will intend readers to provide some insight to explore the further applications and essential properties of NePCMs.
Power generation systems are attracting a lot of interest from researchers and companies. Storage is becoming a component with high importance to ensure system reliability and economic profitability. ...A few experiences of storage components have taken place until the moment in solar power plants, most of them as research initiatives. In this paper, real experiences with active storage systems and passive storage systems are compiled, giving detailed information of advantages and disadvantages of each one. Also, a summary of different technologies and materials used in solar power plants with thermal storage systems existing in the world is presented.
Liquid air energy storage (LAES) represents one of the main alternatives to large-scale electrical energy storage solutions from medium to long-term period such as compressed air and pumped hydro ...energy storage. Indeed, characterized by one of the highest volumetric energy density (≈200 kWh/m3), LAES can overcome the geographical constraints from which the actual mature large-scale electrical energy storage technologies suffer from. LAES is based on the concept that air can be liquefied, stored, and used at a later time to produce electricity. Although the liquefaction of air has been studied for over a century, the first concept of using cryogenics as energy storage was proposed for the first time in 1977 and rediscovered only in recent times. Indeed, the need for alternative energy vectors in the energy system attracted many researchers to discover the potential of the use of cryogenic media. This has brought the realization of a first LAES pilot plant and a growing number of studies regarding LAES systems. The main drawback of this technology is the low round-trip efficiency that can be estimated around 50–60% for large-scale systems. However, due to its thermo-mechanical nature, LAES is a versatile energy storage concept that can be easily integrated with other thermal energy systems or energy sources in a wide range of applications. Most of the literature published is based on thermodynamic and economic analysis focusing on different LAES configurations. This paper provides a collection of the papers published on LAES and it classifies the various studies conducted in different categories. Future perspectives show that hybrid LAES solutions with efficient design of the waste energy recovery sections are the most promising configuration to enhance the techno-economic performance of the stand-alone system.
•The state of the art of LAES is described.•A detailed review of the studies published is reported.•Future prospective can aim to develop LAES hybrid solutions with an efficient thermal energy recovery system.
2D transition metal carbides and nitrides, named MXenes, are attracting increasing attentions and showing competitive performance in energy storage devices including electrochemical capacitors, ...lithium‐ and sodium‐ion batteries, and lithium–sulfur batteries. However, similar to other 2D materials, MXene nanosheets are inclined to stack together, limiting the device performance. In order to fully utilize MXenes' electrochemical energy storage capability, here, processing of 2D MXene flakes into hollow spheres and 3D architectures via a template method is reported. The MXene hollow spheres are stable and can be easily dispersed in solvents such as water and ethanol, demonstrating their potential applications in environmental and biomedical fields as well. The 3D macroporous MXene films are free‐standing, flexible, and highly conductive due to good contacts between spheres and metallic conductivity of MXenes. When used as anodes for sodium‐ion storage, these 3D MXene films exhibit much improved performances compared to multilayer MXenes and MXene/carbon nanotube hybrid architectures in terms of capacity, rate capability, and cycling stability. This work demonstrates the importance of MXene electrode architecture on the electrochemical performance and can guide future work on designing high‐performance MXene‐based materials for energy storage, catalysis, environmental, and biomedical applications.
Hollow Ti3C2Tx spheres and 3D macroporous MXene films are fabricated using a sacrificial template approach. The 3D MXene films are free‐standing, flexible, and highly conductive. They can serve directly as electrodes for Na‐ion storage and exhibit high capacities accompanied with excellent stabilities and rate performance.