IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v223y2018icp134-145.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Thermodynamic assessment of solar photon-enhanced thermionic conversion

Author

Listed:
  • Xiao, Gang
  • Zheng, Guanghua
  • Ni, Dong
  • Li, Qiang
  • Qiu, Min
  • Ni, Mingjiang

Abstract

Photon-enhanced thermionic conversion, an innovative solar power technology, combines photovoltaic and thermionic effects into a single process, and has the potential to surpass the Shockley–Queisser limit and conventional photo-thermal limit. However, there is little understanding about the energy conversion process from a thermodynamic point of view. A detailed thermodynamic model is proposed, encompassing energy and exergy balance, and entropy analysis to evaluate a process for solar photon-enhanced thermionic conversion. The correlation of photons, phonons and electrons is presented, as well as the energy transfer pathway in solar thermionic conversion. The total solar-to-electricity efficiency of energy and exergy are 54.32% and 58.42%, respectively, for a photon-enhanced thermionic converter combined with a Carnot engine, at a 1.20 eV bandgap with an electron affinity of 1.20 eV when the concentrated solar flux is 500 kW/m2. The combination of photoexcitation and thermalization facilitates the overall thermionic emission exergy ratio up to 62.36%, higher than that of conventional thermionic conversion by 10.92%. Temperature-entropy diagrams with quantitative analysis are proposed for the thermodynamic processes of thermionic and photon-enhanced thermionic conversion. The electron fluid cycles from the Fermi level of the anode back to the valance band of the cathode with a reduced entropy, while being thermalized from the conduction band in photon-enhanced thermionic conversion, contributing to the entire conversion of photoexcited energy to electricity.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiao, Gang & Zheng, Guanghua & Ni, Dong & Li, Qiang & Qiu, Min & Ni, Mingjiang, 2018. "Thermodynamic assessment of solar photon-enhanced thermionic conversion," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 134-145.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:223:y:2018:i:c:p:134-145
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.04.044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918306020
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.04.044?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhai, H. & Dai, Y.J. & Wu, J.Y. & Wang, R.Z., 2009. "Energy and exergy analyses on a novel hybrid solar heating, cooling and power generation system for remote areas," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(9), pages 1395-1404, September.
    2. Chow, T.T. & Pei, G. & Fong, K.F. & Lin, Z. & Chan, A.L.S. & Ji, J., 2009. "Energy and exergy analysis of photovoltaic-thermal collector with and without glass cover," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 310-316, March.
    3. Hafez, A.Z. & Soliman, Ahmed & El-Metwally, K.A. & Ismail, I.M., 2017. "Design analysis factors and specifications of solar dish technologies for different systems and applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 1019-1036.
    4. Mwesigye, Aggrey & Meyer, Josua P., 2017. "Optimal thermal and thermodynamic performance of a solar parabolic trough receiver with different nanofluids and at different concentration ratios," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 393-413.
    5. Padilla, Ricardo Vasquez & Soo Too, Yen Chean & Benito, Regano & Stein, Wes, 2015. "Exergetic analysis of supercritical CO2 Brayton cycles integrated with solar central receivers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 348-365.
    6. Parida, Bhubaneswari & Iniyan, S. & Goic, Ranko, 2011. "A review of solar photovoltaic technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 1625-1636, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xu, Haoran & Chen, Bin & Tan, Peng & Cai, Weizi & Wu, Yiyang & Zhang, Houcheng & Ni, Meng, 2018. "A feasible way to handle the heat management of direct carbon solid oxide fuel cells," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 881-890.
    2. Zeneli, M. & Malgarinos, I. & Nikolopoulos, A. & Nikolopoulos, N. & Grammelis, P. & Karellas, S. & Kakaras, E., 2019. "Numerical simulation of a silicon-based latent heat thermal energy storage system operating at ultra-high temperatures," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 837-853.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ajbar, Wassila & Parrales, A. & Huicochea, A. & Hernández, J.A., 2022. "Different ways to improve parabolic trough solar collectors’ performance over the last four decades and their applications: A comprehensive review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    2. Oruc, Muhammed E. & Desai, Amit V. & Kenis, Paul J.A. & Nuzzo, Ralph G., 2016. "Comprehensive energy analysis of a photovoltaic thermal water electrolyzer," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 294-302.
    3. Michael, Jee Joe & S, Iniyan & Goic, Ranko, 2015. "Flat plate solar photovoltaic–thermal (PV/T) systems: A reference guide," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 62-88.
    4. Elbreki, A.M. & Alghoul, M.A. & Sopian, K. & Hussein, T., 2017. "Towards adopting passive heat dissipation approaches for temperature regulation of PV module as a sustainable solution," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 961-1017.
    5. Pang, Wei & Cui, Yanan & Zhang, Qian & Wilson, Gregory.J. & Yan, Hui, 2020. "A comparative analysis on performances of flat plate photovoltaic/thermal collectors in view of operating media, structural designs, and climate conditions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    6. Settino, Jessica & Sant, Tonio & Micallef, Christopher & Farrugia, Mario & Spiteri Staines, Cyril & Licari, John & Micallef, Alexander, 2018. "Overview of solar technologies for electricity, heating and cooling production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 892-909.
    7. Menberg, Kathrin & Heo, Yeonsook & Choi, Wonjun & Ooka, Ryozo & Choudhary, Ruchi & Shukuya, Masanori, 2017. "Exergy analysis of a hybrid ground-source heat pump system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 31-46.
    8. Chen, Heng & Mansir, Ibrahim B. & Chauhan, Bhupendra Singh & Al-Zahrani, Ahmed & Deifalla, Ahmed & Hua, Yinhai & Peng, Fan, 2023. "A comprehensive numerical study on the effectiveness of a rotational-based PTC collector integrated porous foam and PV module," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    9. Wang, Zhangyuan & Qiu, Feng & Yang, Wansheng & Zhao, Xudong & Mei, Sheng, 2016. "Experimental investigation of the thermal and electrical performance of the heat pipe BIPV/T system with metal wires," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 314-323.
    10. Jobel Jose & Rajesh Kanna Parthasarathy & Senthil Kumar Arumugam, 2023. "Energy and Exergy Analysis of a Combined Cooling Heating and Power System with Regeneration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-17, September.
    11. Guo, Jiangfeng, 2016. "Design analysis of supercritical carbon dioxide recuperator," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 21-27.
    12. Sedighi, Mohammadreza & Padilla, Ricardo Vasquez & Alamdari, Pedram & Lake, Maree & Rose, Andrew & Izadgoshasb, Iman & Taylor, Robert A., 2020. "A novel high-temperature (>700 °C), volumetric receiver with a packed bed of transparent and absorbing spheres," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    13. Vivar, M. & H, Sharon & Fuentes, M., 2024. "Photovoltaic system adoption in water related technologies – A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 189(PB).
    14. Mahtta, Richa & Joshi, P.K. & Jindal, Alok Kumar, 2014. "Solar power potential mapping in India using remote sensing inputs and environmental parameters," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 255-262.
    15. DeLovato, Nicolas & Sundarnath, Kavin & Cvijovic, Lazar & Kota, Krishna & Kuravi, Sarada, 2019. "A review of heat recovery applications for solar and geothermal power plants," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-1.
    16. Jiang, Yifan & Li, Xinsheng & Yao, Jian & Wan, Xin & Zhang, Jingxin & Dai, Yanjun, 2022. "Design and performance simulation of a distributed aerobic composting system assisted by solar PV/T heat pump," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 547-559.
    17. Dabwan, Yousef N. & Pei, Gang & Gao, Guangtao & Li, Jing & Feng, Junsheng, 2019. "Performance analysis of integrated linear fresnel reflector with a conventional cooling, heat, and power tri-generation plant," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 639-650.
    18. Ma, Ning & Meng, Fugui & Hong, Wenpeng & Li, Haoran & Niu, Xiaojuan, 2023. "Thermodynamic assessment of the dry-cooling supercritical Brayton cycle in a direct-heated solar power tower plant enabled by CO2-propane mixture," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 649-663.
    19. Wang, Ruilin & Qu, Wanjun & Hong, Hui & Sun, Jie & Jin, Hongguang, 2018. "Experimental performance of 300 kWth prototype of parabolic trough collector with rotatable axis and irreversibility analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 595-609.
    20. Bai, Wengang & Li, Hongzhi & Zhang, Xuwei & Qiao, Yongqiang & Zhang, Chun & Gao, Wei & Yao, Mingyu, 2022. "Thermodynamic analysis of CO2–SF6 mixture working fluid supercritical Brayton cycle used for solar power plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 261(PB).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:223:y:2018:i:c:p:134-145. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.