13 research outputs found
Technologies for the global energy transition
The availability of reliable, affordable and mature technologies is at the basis of an effective decarbonization strategy, that should be in turn supported by timely and accurate policies. Due to the large differences across sectors and countries, there is no silver bullet to support decarbonization, but a combination of multiple technologies will be required to reach the challenging goal of decarbonizing the energy sector. This chapter presents a focus on the current technological solutions that are available in four main sectors: power generation, industry, transport and buildings. The aim of this work is to highlight the main strengths and weaknesses of the current technologies, to help the reader in understanding which are the main opportunities and challenges related to the development and deployment of each of them, as well as their potential contribution to the decarbonization targets. The chapter also provides strategies and policy recommendations from a technology point of view on how to decarbonize the global energy systems by mid-century and of the necessity to take a systems approach
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Characterization and Model of Piezoelectrochemical Energy Harvesting Using Lithium ion Batteries
Although lithium ion battery research often focuseson electrochemical properties, lithium ion intercalation mate-rials are also mechanically active. Essentially, these materialsexhibit a mechanical-electrochemical coupling such that whena stress is applied, the voltage of the battery increases. In thiswork, we develop a model to study and predict the effective-ness of intercalation materials as mechanical energy har-vesters. Specifically, we show that a lithium ion battery har-vester can be modelled as a simple circuit and that we canmake both qualitative and quantitative predictions about theeffectiveness of a battery material given its intrinsic mechan-ical and electrochemical properties. The measured efficiencyof our system, calculated from the energy output and totalwork input, is 0.012 ± 0.004%, and our model predicts thatthe maximum theoretical efficiency of the system is2.9 ± 0.5%. In the future, this model will help us developand study other intercalation materials that will bring the mea-sured efficiency closer to our proposed theoretical maximum