Quinone Battery to make solar and wind power cheaper

We all know that renewable energy is the need of the hour and has many advantages to traditional sources of energy. But do you ever ask, if it is all good, why we are not using it completely?

Why we are not using Renewable energy for all our energy needs?

Whenever this question has been asked, most of the people respond with two reasons:
1. It's expensive to use
2. It's unreliable or inconsistent

And yes, these are the two reasons which make it difficult for Renewable energy to become a sellable commodity. But when you will dig deeper, you will find that the root cause is only the reliability and inconsistency. So, if the wind is blowing well, we produce more electricity but if it's diminished, we don't get any electricity.

To make things more consistent, we use batteries, it solves our first problem but it increases the cost because batteries require regular maintenance and we have to replace them every couple of years.

The project we are going to discuss today is going to address this problem. And if we are able to bring down the cost of batteries, green energy will become super lucrative.

Solar powered boats

The boat is an important mode of transportation on water. Nonetheless, We also use it for tourism purposes to explore beautiful places, rivers, and beaches. The project, we are going to discuss today is about 2-stroke engine boats we usually see on popular tourist destinations.2-stroke engines are the most common form of engines used in boats but they are far more polluting than engines used in cars. With toxic fumes they spew, they are destroying our climate gradually. Moreover, this engine emits Sulfur dioxide gas which later reacts with oxygen found in water to produce sulfuric acid. Sulphuric Acid is harmful to the species inside the water as well as for the surroundings.
In this post, we will see, how we can use solar energy in the boat to replace these traditional fuel engines. Converting these engines to electric engine helps our environment and also help us to protect our resources.

Before we discuss any further, first we should look for other renewable energy sources we can use:
Wind Power: Though, It is a good option and has been used for a long time back but we have two basic problems with a wind-powered small boat, First it requires a lot of space inside the boat and second it is not very efficient.

Nanowires new innovation in Solar Energy

In the last post, we discussed "carbon solar cell" which is manufactured using 100 % carbon(widely available and cheaper to use). In that post, we discussed nanotechnology and how carbon changes its behavior on the nanoscale . Today, we will see how we can use nanotechnology with gallium arsenide(a better alternative to silicon in the solar cells).

Gallium Arsenide:

Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a compound of the elements gallium and arsenic. It is a III/V semiconductor and is used in the manufacturing of solar cells since 1970 when it was first introduced by Zhores Alferov in the USSR. In the early 1980s, the efficiency of the best GaAs solar cells surpassed that of silicon solar cells. These cells have also been used in the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which are exploring Mars' surface.

Carbon Solar Cells

Though we have discussed a lot about solar energy projects, solar energy is not economically viable for our daily use because of increasingly expensive materials used in traditional solar cells made up of silicon, which is not available in abundance and hence very costly. Today, we will discuss carbon solar cells and how to use them to built complete carbon solar cells?

Solar Powered automatic rain operated wiper

We have discussed many projects related to solar energy and we are going to discuss many more in the next few months. In this post, we will see how we can use sunlight in an automobile.  

Though this project has been implemented by many companies, it would be great to build one for yourself in a lab or as your final year project. When I was thinking about this project, I thought it would be great if we can build it as an extension of rain sensor wipers project idea. 

It is very easy to build and needs very few components. Rain Operated Motor consists of a conduction sensor(Tough Sensor) circuit, Control Unit, Wiper Motor, and Glass Frame.

Pedal Powered Juicer Grinder

A juicer is a tool for separating juice from fruits, herbs, leafy greens and other types of vegetables from its pulp in a process called juicing. In separating the pulp, juicers concentrate the nutrition naturally present in fruits and vegetables and allow the body to more easily absorb the nutrition than digesting the solid produce. The use of juicers also makes it easier to consume more raw produce.

Electric Juicer is a very common part of our life. But, do you know how much electricity we consume while juicing! if we start using pedal-powered juicers, we will not only save a large amount of electricity but our body would get some exercise too.

This project idea is for mechanical and physics students.

Water fuel Power Generation System

 Is it possible to use water to power our cars?

Some people claim that it is possible and done before and other thinks, it has never been done and would need more time before this actually happens. But all of them believe that someday we can run our cars on water. I found this project idea interesting enough to discuss with you. If you are a believer in water fuel cell invented by American Stanley Allen Meyer. Then you should try this project and see whether we can run our cars on water or if we can generate power using water fuel cells? 

Light Weight floating Wind Turbine

A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine mounted on a floating structure that allows the turbine to generate electricity or pump water in water depths where bottom-mounted towers are not feasible.

Furthermore, the wind is more powerful over the sea in comparison to land. Though there are many ways we can use these turbines, today we will see how we can use them for pumping water.

Pedal Powered Water Filter

Pure water is precious and its value is known to those people who do not get it. According to the WHO, such disease-account for an estimated 4.1% of the total DALY(Disability-adjusted life year) global burden of disease, and cause about 1.8 million human deaths annually. Waterborne diseases are caused by pathogenic microorganisms that most commonly are transmitted in contaminated freshwater. In my last post, I discussed how we can purify it with solar energy. Though in summer solar water purifier is a good option in winter or rainy season it becomes very inefficient and slow.

We need a system which can work the whole year whether it is day or night. A pedal Powered water filter is one such solution. It is a green and pollution-free method of purifying water using human labor.

How it works?

We all know how nature filters our water. It evaporates dirty or seawater and later condenses it in the form of rain which is pure drinking water. Pedal-powered water purifier works on the same concept. In this project, we pedal our bicycle to transform water into vapor and later condense it to get clean water.

Solar Powered Water Pumps

This month we discussed lot of projects about irrigation and how we can make it greener. This idea of solar powered pump is also a part of that series which includes drip irrigation using wind energy and mechanical sprayer.Solar pump is a useful device for irrigation. In my opinion at hot places solar energy is much better than traditional methods because it works during day time and consumes no electricity or any fuel.

Solar Turbine Generator

Solar turbine generators generate electricity in similar way as any other generator; the only difference is that they use sun light in the place of other sources such as coal, wood or petroleum gases.

We had discussed in solar powered steam engines that how we can use sun energy to power our engines. This project idea is extension of that talk.  If we can connect solar powered engine to spin turbine connected to magnets and coil, we can able to generate electricity.

Bio gas powered water heater

Hot water is essential part of human life. During winters, we all need it for our daily activities such as bathing and cleaning. To boil water we use various sources such as coal, petroleum fuel, wood, gas and electricity but most of our methods release greenhouse gases.

Nowadays, Gas geezers are very popular because of their efficiency.  Gas geezers or water heaters burn gas instead of electricity as their heat supplier. There are two types of gas water heaters: With water storage tank and Without water tanks. We can use any from them but I would suggest tank less heater because using it , we would get continuous supply of hot water and it is energy efficient too.

Wind Mill Water Pump

We have discussed Drip irrigation powered by wind mill. I told you to use wind powered pump at the place of traditional one. Today we will move one step forward and find out how? In the meanwhile, I would also share some related videos.  So, let’s begin our journey of windmill pump:

Advantages of using windmill pump?

• It powers itself from green energy.
• According to many estimates, it can recover its cost in 5 years.
• It can be used anywhere, even in areas where electricity has not reached yet.
• If used with drip irrigation, it works automatically without human intervention.

Generating Electricity from Waste water

Tons and tons of waste dumped upon our mother earth each day. This waste not only causes damage to our environment but has health risk too. To use this water again, our governments are using water treatment plants. Project Idea we are going to discuss today would use these plants to power our homes.

How?

We all know that, in nature different materials biodegrade at different rates. It is a chemical dissolution of materials by bacteria or other biological means. Bacteria in the presence of oxygen produce carbon dioxide and water, but when we stop the supply of oxygen they start to produce electrons and protons.  They were first found by Professor M.C. Potter in 1911. When we use them to generate electricity in a cell, this cell is called as Microbial fuel cell.

Solar powered Steam engine

Steam engine brought industrial revolution in 19th century. Moreover, we can say that they were the engine of growth. At present time too, they are widely used in nuclear and coal power plants.

We discussed steam engine briefly in our post steam engine powered bicycle. Today we will discuss how we can produce steam using solar power?

Why do we need to use solar power?

Traditional steam engines mainly use coal and nuclear fuel to power themselves. Each of these methods has their repercussion. Coal powered engine damage our environment and after Japan Tsunami we know that use of nuclear fuel can be dangerous. Moreover, there are other strong reasons too, one of the most important is that sun light is free and abundant while coal and uranium are not.

How this project works?

To understand it, first you should know about how steam engine works?

Steam engines produce steam by boiling water and later use that steam for pushing piston in to and fro motion.My idea is, if we can use energy from the sun, to boil our water and left remaining steam engine intact, it would work exactly like our traditional engine except that our engine is powered by green energy.

To boil water using solar energy, we need a large magnify glass focused on our Solar Evacuated tube.
Evacuated tubes absorb solar energy and convert it into heat for use in water heating.  There are several types of evacuated tubes used in solar thermal collectors.This type of tube is chosen for its reliability, performance and cost effectiveness. We connect this tube with our engine using pipe and pass steam through it.

Highway Wind Turbines

We all know that how important wind power is.The only disadvantage with wind power is that it needs continuous flow of wind to generate electricity. Moreover, this is the reason that most of wind mills area is limited to large farmlands, sea and hills.

Project idea we are discussing today can solve this limitation problem. The only place in the world , where winds keeps on flowing irrespective of season whether day or night is Highways . What if we install our wind turbine at Dividers?

Power generation using railway track

The key element of  this project  is a variable capacitor, which can convert mechanical energy into electrical energy with the help of work done by an external force against the electric field formed between the two plates of the capacitor.

Generating electricity using roads

There are millions of cars on streets around the world at any given time of day. Whenever, we talk about cars;  we start to think about negatives such as pollution , congestion etc etc. Despite all these cons , cars are essential part of our life and project would discuss today use these cars for generating electricity.

How?
We would use Piezoelectric material below the roads.When cars roll over it, due to pressure exerted by the cars, it starts generating electric current.

Energy Harvesting from a Piezoelectric Sidewalk

Millions of people use sidewalk daily which is a path along the side of a road. A sidewalk may accommodate moderate changes in grade (height) and is normally separated from the vehicular section by a curb.

Thermo Acoustic Refrigerator

Thermoacoustics is the study of the interactions between thermodynamic and acoustic phenomena. Thermoacoustics is a relatively new field of science and engineering. Few devices based on this principle have been made thus far. Most are for research purposes.

Thermoacoustic refrigerators have no ozone-depleting or toxic coolant and few or no moving parts, therefore, require no dynamic sealing or lubrication.


Concept :





The above formula states that there is a relation between pressure changes and temperature changes. A dynamic pressure would cause a dynamic temperature and vice versa


Interference between the incoming and reflected wave is now imperfect since there is a difference in amplitude causing the standing wave to travel little, giving the wave acoustic power. In the acoustic wave, parcels of gas adiabatically compress and expand. Pressure and temperature change simultaneously, when the pressure reaches a maximum or minimum, so does the temperature. Heat pumping along with a stack in a standing wave device can now be described using the Brayton cycle.

Thermoacoustic engines (sometimes called "TA engines") are thermoacoustic devices that use high-amplitude sound waves to pump heat from one place to another, or conversely use a heat difference to induce high-amplitude sound waves.

Thermoacoustics is a relatively new field of science and engineering.


Related Projects:

Mechanical Projects
Solar Powered Refrigerator