All-vanadium sulfate acid redox flow battery system
All-vanadium sulfate redox flow battery systems have a catholyte and an anolyte comprising an aqueous supporting solution including chloride ions and phosphate ions. The aqueous supporting solution stabilizes and increases the solubility of vanadium species in the electrolyte, allowing an increased vanadium concentration over a desired operating temperature range. According to one example, the chloride ions are provided by MgCl2, and the phosphate ions are provided by (NH4)2HPO4.
HYDROTHERMAL LIQUEFACTION SYSTEM WITH HEAT EXCHANGER NETWORK (iEdison No. 0685901-22-0139)
This invention segregates the heat integration in a hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) process to reduce the design pressure and temperature requirements for piping, pumps, and heat exchanger equipment. Reducing the design conditions reduces the equipment cost and size and allows for multiple heat exchange technology options to be simultaneously utilized. The vapor pressure of water sets the system operating pressure. Water is very volatile, so the vapor pressure increases rapidly with operating temperature. Areas of the process that require high temperatures, such as the reactor, must be designed for a high operating pressure. However, areas of the process that do not operate at high temperatures can in principle be designed for lower operating pressure. The HTL process requires heating a slurry feed from ambient temperature to 600-700 degF. The large temperature change requires a significant investment in heat exchangers. Heat exchangers are responsible for > 70% of the capital cost of HTL. The design pressure of the heat exchangers has a major influence on the cost. The thickness of the heat exchanger shell is proportional to the design pressure. Therefore, reducing the design pressure by half will reduce the mass of metal required to make the shell by approximately half. In addition to heat exchangers being cheaper, lowering the design pressure allows additional styles of heat exchangers to be used. For example, spiral heat exchangers have many advantages over shell and tube heat exchangers for slurry service. However, the relatively low design pressure limitations of spiral heat exchangers have prevented their utilization for HTL. This invention separates the feed/product heat exchanger train into multiple sections operating at different pressures. Sections earlier in the heat exchanger train (operating at lower temperature) can operate at lower pressure, allowing them to be manufactured cheaper. Staging pumps are used to increase the pressure between the different heat exchanger sections. This invention allows for different heat exchanger technologies to be used between the multiple sections. One configuration proposed is to use a spiral heat exchanger design in the earlier, low pressure stages and shell and tube in the later, high pressure stages. This configuration could be advantaged because spiral heat exchangers perform very well in the HTL application due to their fouling resistance and reasonably good heat transfer with viscous fluids, but can be expensive to manufacture at high design pressures.
ULTRA-STABLE REFERENCE ELECTRODE FOR ENERGY STORAGE AND CONVERSION SYSTEMS (iEdison No. 0685901-22-0172)
The inventors have developed an ultra-stable reference electrode (RE) for energy storage and conversion systems for assessment of energy storage devices, including redox flow batteries. The reference electrode provides improved accuracy, stability, repeatability, and reliability when monitoring batteries. The electrode can be used in situ. More specifically, the newly invented RE, based on a dynamic hydrogen electrode (DHE) with a novel design on the area and surface roughness of platinum electrodes, demonstrates high accuracy and long-term stability that enables in-situ monitoring of individual electrode potentials throughout 500 cycles.
METHOD AND SYSTEM EMBODIMENTS FOR CONVERTING ETHANOL TO PARA-XYLENE AND ORTHO-XYLENE (iEdison No. 0685901-19-0012)
In collaboration with LanzaTech we have developed a chemistry to generate p-xylene from ethanol. The innovation involves the conversion of ethanol derived acetaldehyde to p-methylbenzaldehyde over mixed oxide catalyst followed by the conversion to p-xylene via hydrogenolysis (ethanol → acetaldehyde → p-methyl benzaldehyde → p-xylene). Among aromatics, the production distribution contains only p-xylene, o-xylene and benzene. Typical p-xylene synthesis (both conventional and renewable) process contains range of aromatics (e.g. benzene, toluene, o-xylene, ethyl benzene, m-xylene, p-xylene etc.) that needs to be purified via the expensive separation process. The simple aromatic stream provides to major advantages over the conventional and other renewable technologies. 1) The aromatic mixture to p-xylene separation/purification steps become simpler and cheaper 2) Enables to build a modular plant to meet the local renewable feedstock availability and reduces the feedstock transportation cost
Functional Sorbent for Chemical Separations and Sequential Forming Process
This invention describes novel methodology for making a nanoporous composite materials that have higher functional density than is possible using standard self-assembly methods. In addition, this methodology also provides greater access to the sorbent binding sites than is possible using “standard” polymer deposition methods.
Self Assembled Multi-Layer Nanocomposite of Graphene and Metal Oxicde Materials
Controlled graphene metal oxides organized on the nanoscale. The metal oxides can be SiO2, SnO2, and any other oxides and mixed oxides. The metal oxides can be replaced by a polymer or phosphate materials. The nanocomposites can be used for energy storage, sensing, catalyst support, and other applications. The graphene can be dispersed in the metal oxides. The grapehne and metal oxides can form alternative layered composites. The final materials can be mesoporous and conductive.
METHODS FOR CONVERSION OF LIGNOCELLULOSIC-DERIVED PRODUCTS TO TRANSPORTATION FUEL PRECURSORS
Methods are disclosed for converting a biomass-derived product containing levulinic acid and/or gamma-valerolactone to a transportation fuel precursor product containing diesel like hydrocarbons. These methods are expected to produce fuel products at a reduced cost relative to conventional approaches.
Metal Fluoride Electrode Protection Layer and Method of Making Same
The present invention discloses a method to modify the titanium oxide based anode materials by coating a thin layer of AlF3 on the particle surface and the excellent battery performance for the thus obtained surface-modified titanium oxide based materials. This method is simple and cost effective. The key aspect of the present invention is to keep the AlF3 coating at low content particularly between 0.1% and 10% and more particularly between 1% and 5%. The thin AlF3-coating layer significantly improves the power performance, capacity retention at elevated temperatures and long term cycle life of the lithium-ion batteries using these surface-modified anode materials.