Sustainable Energy Conversion for Electricity and Coproducts - Ashok Rao - E-Book

Sustainable Energy Conversion for Electricity and Coproducts E-Book

Ashok Rao

0,0
113,99 €

-100%
Sammeln Sie Punkte in unserem Gutscheinprogramm und kaufen Sie E-Books und Hörbücher mit bis zu 100% Rabatt.

Mehr erfahren.
Beschreibung

Sustainable Energy Conversion for Electricity and Coproducts

Comprehensive and a fundamental approach to the study of sustainable fuel conversion for the generation of electricity and for coproducing synthetic fuels and chemicals

Both electricity and chemicals are critical to maintain our modern way of life; however, environmental impacts have to be factored in to sustain this type of lifestyle. Sustainable Energy Conversion for Electricity and Coproducts provides a unified, comprehensive, and a fundamental approach to the study of sustainable fuel conversion in order to generate electricity and optionally coproduce synthetic fuels and chemicals.

The book starts with an introduction to energy systems and describes the various forms of energy sources: natural gas, petroleum, coal, biomass, and other renewables and nuclear. Their distribution is discussed in order to emphasize the uneven availability and finiteness of some of these resources. Each topic in the book is covered in sufficient detail from a theoretical and practical applications standpoint essential for engineers involved in the development of the modern power plant.

Sustainable Energy Conversion for Electricity and Coproducts features the following:

  • Discusses the impact of energy sources on the environment along with an introduction to the supply chain and life cycle analyses in order to emphasize the holistic approach required for sustainability. Not only are the emissions of criteria pollutants addressed but also the major greenhouse gas CO2 which is essential for the overall sustainability.
  • Deals with underlying principles and their application to engineering including thermodynamics, fluid flow, and heat and mass transfer which form the foundation for the more technology specific chapters that follow.
  • Details specific subjects within energy plants such as prime movers, systems engineering, Rankine cycle and the Brayton–Rankine combined cycle, and emerging technologies such as high-temperature membranes and fuel cells.
  • Sustainable energy conversion is an extremely active field of research at this time. By covering the multidisciplinary fundamentals in sufficient depth, this book is largely self-contained suitable for the different engineering disciplines, as well as chemists working in this field of sustainable energy conversion.

Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:

Android
iOS
von Legimi
zertifizierten E-Readern

Seitenzahl: 826

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Bewertungen
0,0
0
0
0
0
0
Mehr Informationen
Mehr Informationen
Legimi prüft nicht, ob Rezensionen von Nutzern stammen, die den betreffenden Titel tatsächlich gekauft oder gelesen/gehört haben. Wir entfernen aber gefälschte Rezensionen.



CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

PREFACE

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

1 INTRODUCTION TO ENERGY SYSTEMS

1.1 ENERGY SOURCES AND DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES

1.2 ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

1.3 HOLISTIC APPROACH

1.4 CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES

2 THERMODYNAMICS

2.1 FIRST LAW

2.2 SECOND LAW

2.3 COMBUSTION AND GIBBS FREE ENERGY MINIMIZATION

2.4 NONIDEAL BEHAVIOR

REFERENCES

3 FLUID FLOW EQUIPMENT

3.1 FUNDAMENTALS OF FLUID FLOW

3.2 SINGLE-PHASE INCOMPRESSIBLE FLOW

3.3 SINGLE-PHASE COMPRESSIBLE FLOW

3.4 TWO-PHASE FLUID FLOW

3.5 SOLID FLUID SYSTEMS

3.6 FLUID VELOCITY IN PIPES

3.7 TURBOMACHINERY

REFERENCES

4 HEAT TRANSFER EQUIPMENT

4.1 FUNDAMENTALS OF HEAT TRANSFER

4.2 HEAT EXCHANGE EQUIPMENT

REFERENCES

5 MASS TRANSFER AND CHEMICAL REACTION EQUIPMENT

5.1 FUNDAMENTALS OF MASS TRANSFER

5.2 GAS–LIQUID SYSTEMS

5.3 FLUID–SOLID SYSTEMS

REFERENCES

6 PRIME MOVERS

6.1 GAS TURBINES

6.2 STEAM TURBINES

6.3 RECIPROCATING INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES

6.4 HYDRAULIC TURBINES

REFERENCES

7 SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

7.1 DESIGN BASIS

7.2 SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

7.3 EXERGY AND PINCH ANALYSES

7.4 PROCESS FLOW DIAGRAMS

7.5 DYNAMIC SIMULATION AND PROCESS CONTROL

7.6 COST ESTIMATION AND ECONOMICS

7.7 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

REFERENCES

8 RANKINE CYCLE SYSTEMS

8.1 BASIC RANKINE CYCLE

8.2 ADDITION OF SUPERHEATING

8.3 ADDITION OF REHEAT

8.4 ADDITION OF ECONOMIZER AND REGENERATIVE FEEDWATER HEATING

8.5 SUPERCRITICAL RANKINE CYCLE

8.6 THE STEAM CYCLE

8.7 COAL-FIRED POWER GENERATION

8.8 PLANT-DERIVED BIOMASS-FIRED POWER GENERATION

8.9 MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE FIRED POWER GENERATION

8.10 LOW-TEMPERATURE CYCLES

REFERENCES

9 BRAYTON–RANKINE COMBINED CYCLE SYSTEMS

9.1 COMBINED CYCLE

9.2 NATURAL GAS-FUELED PLANTS

9.3 COAL AND BIOMASS FUELED PLANTS

9.4 INDIRECTLY FIRED CYCLE

REFERENCES

10 COPRODUCTION AND COGENERATION

10.1 TYPES OF COPRODUCTS AND SYNERGY IN COPRODUCTION

10.2 SYNGAS GENERATION FOR COPRODUCTION

10.3 SYNGAS CONVERSION TO SOME KEY COPRODUCTS

10.4 HYDROGEN COPRODUCTION FROM COAL AND BIOMASS

10.5 COMBINED HEAT AND POWER

REFERENCES

11 ADVANCED SYSTEMS

11.1 HIGH TEMPERATURE MEMBRANE SEPARATORS

11.2 FUEL CELLS

11.3 CHEMICAL LOOPING

11.4 MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS

REFERENCES

12 RENEWABLES AND NUCLEAR

12.1 WIND

12.2 SOLAR

12.3 GEOTHERMAL

12.4 NUCLEAR

12.5 ELECTRIC GRID STABILITY AND DEPENDENCE ON FOSSIL FUELS

REFERENCES

APPENDIX: ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS, SYMBOLS AND UNITS

INDEX

END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

List of Tables

Chapter 01

Table 1.1 Typical U.S. contract specifications for natural gas

Table 1.2 Variation in composition of natural gas

Table 1.3 Summary of heating value calculations

Table 1.4 Composition of a bituminous and a lignite coal (as received basis)

Table 1.5 Calculated amount of CO

2

formed by complete combustion

Table 1.6 Biomass versus coal characteristics

Chapter 02

Table 2.1 Fuel enthalpy and heat of formation

Table 2.2 Oxidant (air) required

Table 2.3 Oxidant (air) enthalpy and heat of formation

Table 2.4 Products formed by combustion

Table 2.5 Flue gas composition and heats of formation

Table 2.6 Flue gas enthalpy and heat of formation at two trial temperatures

Table 2.7 Experimental data at 300°F (149°C) for vapor–liquid equilibrium data for H

2

O–CO

2

system

Table 2.8 Calculated versus experimental data for moisture content of the vapor phase

Chapter 03

Table 3.1 Selected piping parameters

Table 3.2 Pressure losses (most

K

values are from Technical Paper No. 410 by Crane Co., 1988)

Table 3.3 Compressor power requirement

Chapter 04

Table 4.1 Advantages and disadvantages of different types of external reboilers

Chapter 06

Table 6.1 Characteristics of blast furnace, digester, and landfill gases

Table 6.2 Design and off-design point performance of a steam turbine

Chapter 07

Table 7.1 Combined cycle plant data

Table 7.2 NO

x

emission calculations

Table 7.3 Types of cost estimates

Chapter 08

Table 8.1 Power output from steam turbine at two different superheat temperatures

Table 8.2 HCl emissions from a bituminous coal and a lignite

Table 8.3 SO

x

emissions from a biomass and a lignite

Chapter 09

Table 9.1 J class gas turbine combined cycle features

Table 9.2 Contaminants in coal-derived raw syngas

Table 9.3 First law efficiencies for the closed cycle gas turbine

Chapter 10

Table 10.1 Specifications for automobile fuel (M-100 as established by California Air Resources Board)

Table 10.2 Specifications for chemical grade (AA) methanol (U.S. Federal Specifications)

Table 10.3 Fe- versus Co-based catalyst for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis

Table 10.4 Fischer–Tropsch product yields with Co-based catalyst in slurry reactor

Table 10.5 Fischer–Tropsch synthesis yield data

Table 10.6 Power output from back pressure steam turbine

Table 10.7 Refrigeration duty

Table 10.8 Amount of steam to be extracted

Table 10.9 Power developed by turbines

Chapter 11

Table 11.1 Performance summary of a pressurized fuel cell hybrid system

Chapter 12

Table 12.1 Relative LCA greenhouse gas emission intensities from power plants (data from Edenhofer et al., 2011)

Table 12.2 Worldwide distribution of wind resources (data from Edenhofer et al., 2011; Lu et al., 2009)

Table 12.3 Wind power class (data from National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2014)

Table 12.4 Worldwide technically potential solar energy resources (data from Edenhofer et al., 2011; Rogner et al., 2000)

Table 12.5 Worldwide geothermal energy potential at various depths for electric power generation (data from Edenhofer et al., 2011)

List of Illustrations

Chapter 01

Figure 1.1 Vertical versus directional (essentially horizontal) drilling

Chapter 02

Figure 2.1 An open system

Figure 2.2 A simple combustor

Figure 2.3 Hypothetical path for calculating Δ

H

Reax

Figure 2.4 A heat-driven refrigeration cycle using an ideal gas

Figure 2.5 A cyclical reversible heat engine with an ideal gas

Figure 2.6 Entropy generation in free expansion of a gas

Figure 2.7 Reversible expansion of component after diffusion through membrane

Chapter 03

Figure 3.1 Pressure drop and flow regimes in solid-fluid flow

Figure 3.2 Centrifugal pump with volute casing

Figure 3.3 Centrifugal pump characteristics and system requirements

Figure 3.4 Pump introducing a liquid from a tank into a pressure vessel

Figure 3.5 Pressure-volume diagram for a reciprocating compressor

Figure 3.6 Dynamic compressor characteristics and system requirements

Chapter 04

Figure 4.1 Heat transfer between fluids separated by tube wall

Figure 4.2 Heat loss from insulated pipe by conduction, convection, and radiation

Figure 4.3 Shell and tube exchanger with U-tubes

Chapter 05

Figure 5.1 Selexol

TM

process for desulfurization and decarbonization of syngas

Figure 5.2 MEA process for decarbonization of flue gas

Figure 5.3 Single stage versus multi-stage distillation

Figure 5.4 Methanol distillation

Figure 5.5 Stage to stage calculations in a distillation column

Figure 5.6 A differential element in a distillation column

Figure 5.7 A batch adsorption process

Chapter 06

Figure 6.1 Air-standard Brayton cycle

Figure 6.2 An open simple cycle gas turbine

Figure 6.3 Effect of gas turbine compression ratio on efficiency

Figure 6.4 Simple cycle and reheat gas turbine cycles

Figure 6.5 Effect of ambient temperature on gas turbine performance

Figure 6.6 Air-standard Otto cycle

Figure 6.7 Air-standard Diesel cycle

Chapter 07

Figure 7.1 Work flow in systems analysis

Figure 7.2 A BFD for a gas turbine–based combined cycle plant

Figure 7.3 Configuration with high utility stream usage

Figure 7.4 Configuration with utility stream usage minimized

Figure 7.5 PFD for the power generation subsystem of the combined cycle plant

Figure 7.6 Steam jacketed agitated vessel

Chapter 08

Figure 8.1 Basic Rankine cycle

Figure 8.2

S

versus

T

diagram for the basic Rankine cycle

Figure 8.3 Rankine cycle with superheating

Figure 8.4

S

versus

T

diagram for Rankine cycle with superheating

Figure 8.5

diagram for Rankine cycle with and without superheating

Figure 8.6 Rankine cycle with superheating and reheating

Figure 8.7

S

versus

T

diagram for Rankine cycle with superheating and reheating

Figure 8.8

diagram for Rankine cycle with superheating and reheating

Figure 8.9 Superheat/reheat Rankine cycle with economizer

Figure 8.10

diagram for superheat/reheat Rankine cycle with economizer

Figure 8.11 Rankine cycle with regenerative heating

Figure 8.12

diagram for supercritical Rankine cycle

Figure 8.13 Central station power plant with supercritical steam Rankine cycle

Figure 8.14 An ORC with regenerative heater

Chapter 09

Figure 9.1 Energy flows in simple cycle and combined cycle

Figure 9.2 Reheat gas turbine with spray intercooling

Figure 9.3

diagrams for single and dual pressure steam cycles

Figure 9.4 Closed-circuit steam cooled gas turbine combined cycle with triple pressure reheat subctritical steam cycle

Figure 9.5 Part load performance of combined cycles

Figure 9.6 A near zero emission IGCC

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1 Coproduction in an IGCC

Figure 10.2 Temperature versus CO conversion

Figure 10.3 Liquid phase methanol synthesis and distillation

Figure 10.4 The Avancore urea process

Figure 10.5 Fischer–Tropsch liquids synthesis with a tubular reactor

Figure 10.6 Anderson–Schulz–Flory distribution plots

Figure 10.7 IGCC for coproduction of electricity and H

2

Figure 10.8 IGFC for coproduction of electricity and H

2

Figure 10.9 Thermodynamic advantage of a CHP plant

Figure 10.10 Single stage LiBr absorption refrigeration for chilled water

Chapter 11

Figure 11.1 An electrolyzer and a fuel cell

Figure 11.2 The triple phase boundary

Figure 11.3 Tafel plot

Figure 11.4 Polarization curve

Figure 11.5 Schematic of a natural gas fuel cell system

Figure 11.6 A pressurized fuel cell hybrid system

Figure 11.7 An atmospheric MCFC hybrid system

Figure 11.8 Hydrogasifier-based IGFC

Chapter 12

Figure 12.1 Variability of power produced by wind farms (CAISO data for April 27, 2013 as solid line and October 27, 2013 as dashed line)

Figure 12.2 Wind turbine power curve

Figure 12.3 A combined steam and organic fluid cycle

Figure 12.4 Kalina cycle at Geothermal Power Plant in Húsavík, Iceland

Figure 12.5 Reasonable assured resources (RAR) of uranium

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Pages

iv

xi

xii

xiii

xiv

xv

xvi

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

126

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

148

149

150

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

160

161

162

163

164

165

166

167

168

169

170

171

172

173

174

175

176

177

178

179

180

181

182

183

184

185

186

187

188

189

190

191

192

193

194

195

196

197

198

199

200

201

202

203

204

205

206

207

208

209

210

211

212

213

214

215

216

217

218

219

220

221

222

223

224

225

226

227

228

229

230

231

232

233

234

235

236

237

238

239

240

241

242

243

244

245

246

247

248

249

250

251

252

253

254

255

256

257

258

259

260

261

262

263

264

265

266

267

268

269

270

271

272

273

274

275

276

277

278

279

280

281

282

283

284

285

286

287

288

289

290

291

292

293

294

295

296

297

298

299

300

301

302

303

304

305

306

307

308

309

310

311

312

313

314

315

316

317

318

319

320

321

322

323

324

325

326

327

328

329

330

331

332

333

334

335

336

337

338

339

340

341

342

343

344

345

346

347

348

349

350

351

352

353

354

355

356

357

358

359

360

361

362

363

364

365

366

367

368

369

370

371

372

373

374

375

376

377

378

379

380

381

382

383

384

385

386

387

388

389

390

391

392

393

394

395

396

397

398

399

400

401

402

403

404

405

406

407

408

SUSTAINABLE ENERGY CONVERSION FOR ELECTRICITY AND COPRODUCTS

Principles, Technologies, and Equipment

 

ASHOK RAO, PH.D.

Advanced Power and Energy ProgramUniversity of CaliforniaIrvine, CA, USA

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New JerseyPublished simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic formats. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for.

PREFACE

We need both electricity and chemicals for our modern way of life but environmental impacts have to be factored in to sustain this type of lifestyle. The book provides a unified, comprehensive, and a fundamental approach to the study of the multidisciplinary field of sustainable energy conversion to generate electricity and optionally coproduce synthetic fuels and chemicals. Modern power plants with these objectives differ in many significant respects to the traditional methods of generating electricity from fossil fuels such as coal, that is, by “simply” burning the fuel to generate steam and producing electricity via a Rankine cycle. Such “steam plants” were traditionally designed by mechanical engineers, while modern power plants, with more and more emphasis being placed on sustainability that impacts both the thermal performance as well as the environmental signature, are incorporating processes that have traditionally been handled by chemical engineers. Furthermore, the harsh environments that some of the equipment are exposed to consisting of very high operating temperatures, pressures, and corrosive atmospheres require advanced materials capable of exhibiting good mechanical properties at those conditions, as well as suitable chemical properties. Thus, this subject of sustainable power plant development and design is of current interest not only to mechanical, chemical, and industrial engineers and chemists but also to material scientists. Many of the topics covered in this book should also be useful to electrical engineer involved in the development of the modern power plant.

Some of the principles from each of these fields are essential in developing a more complete understanding of energy conversion systems for electricity generation. While an exhaustive discussion of all of the basic multidisciplinary principles required in a book of reasonable length is not possible to provide, this book does provide adequate depth in order to be largely self-contained. Each topic is covered in sufficient detail from a theoretical and practical applications standpoint essential for engineers. This book could serve as a textbook for a senior- or a graduate-level course, especially in chemical, mechanical, and industrial engineering and is assumed that the student has had undergraduate courses in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer. Researchers and practicing industry professionals in energy conversion field will also find this quite useful as a reference book.

The book starts with an introduction to energy systems (Chapter 1) and describes the various forms of energy sources: natural gas, petroleum, coal, biomass, other renewables and nuclear. Their distribution is discussed in order to emphasize the uneven availability and finiteness of some of these resources. Impact on the environment is also included along with an introduction to the supply chain and life cycle analyses in order to emphasize the holistic approach required for sustainability. The next set of chapters discusses the underlying principles of physics and their application to engineering and is as follows:

Chapter 2

: Thermodynamics and its application to combustion and power cycles, and the first and second law analyses are discussed.

Chapter 3

: Fluid flow with an introduction to both incompressible flow and compressible flow followed by applications to flow through pipes and fittings, droplet separation, fluidization, and turbomachinery are presented.

Chapter 4

: The three modes of heat transfer, conduction, convection, and radiation, followed by application of these principles to heat exchange equipment design are discussed.

Chapter 5

: Mass transfer and chemical reaction engineering that includes fundamentals of diffusive and convection mass transfer and reaction kinetics are provided followed by application to design of both mass transfer equipment and reactors.

After covering the fundamentals of equipment design, the next set of chapters dwells in more specific subjects dealing with “energy plants” (i.e., plants in which the principal product is energy such as electrical or thermal) and is as follows:

Chapter 6

: Prime movers which are at the heart of a power plant that includes steam turbines, gas turbines, reciprocating internal combustion engines, and hydraulic turbines are discussed.

Chapter 7

: Systems engineering introduces the reader practical aspects of systems or process design. Topics covered in this chapter include at an introductory level, systems integration and application of exergy analysis and pinch technology, dynamic modeling and process control, development of process flow diagrams, cost estimation and economics, and application of life cycle assessment.

Chapters 8

and

9

: With an understanding of systems design and integration, the reader is then introduced to major power cycles, the Rankine cycle and the Brayton–Rankine combined cycle.

Chapter 10

: Coproduction of fuels and chemicals, which is gaining significant attention more recently due to the synergy and the ability to change the split between electricity generation and coproduct synthesis with intermittent renewables supplying a larger fraction of power to the grid, is next introduced. Synthesis of some key coproducts is described and specific examples of coproduction in both natural gas and coal or biomass based integrated gasification combined cycles are presented.

Chapter 11

: Advanced systems such as fuel cells along with hybrid cycles employing fuel cells and membrane separators and reactors are discussed.

Chapter 12

: An introduction to renewables such as wind, solar, and geothermal as well as nuclear energy is presented. Also included in this chapter is a discussion of the dependence of intermittent renewables such as solar and wind on fossil fueled plants for maintaining electrical power grid stability at least in the foreseeable future before large-scale energy storage devices are commercially available. This chapter is included to provide the reader a background on some of the other means of generating power sustainably, especially since their contribution to the energy mix will be increasing as time progresses.

In summary, the comprehensive and fundamental nature of the book that addresses both the practical issues and theoretical considerations will thus make it attractive to a broad range of practitioners and students alike, serving as a textbook for a senior- or graduate-level course related to the energy conversion disciplines of chemical, mechanical, and industrial engineering, as well as a reference or monograph for the professional engineer or researcher in the field including electrical engineers. Sustainable energy conversion is an extremely active field of research at this time. By covering multidisciplinary fundamentals in sufficient depth, this book is largely self-contained and suitable for different engineering disciplines, as well as chemists working in this field of sustainable energy conversion. The professional societies with interest in this field include the AIChE, ACS, ASME, SME, and IEEE.

ASHOK RAO

University of California, Irvine, USA

ABOUT THE BOOK

There are only few comprehensive books that cover the various aspects of energy conversion for electricity generation. Such books, however, have focused on either overall systems or hardware with less emphasis given to the physical principles. Dr. Rao with his vast practical experience working in industry designing “real systems” and his theoretical understanding of the underlying principles brings to the table a unique and synergistic blend of these two essential knowledge bases. His involvement at the university gives the author the advantage of writing a book that is useful not only to the practicing professional but also to the student.

The contents of this book are based on Dr. Rao’s experience gained both in industry which was for over more than 30 years and working in a university setting which was for about 10 years. The industry experience included training junior staff in developing and designing power systems, while the university setting involved teaching short courses and a senior-/graduate-level course in sustainable energy, as well as guiding graduate students in their research.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Ashok Rao is a well-acknowledged national and international leader in the field of energy conversion for generation of electricity and coproduction of chemicals and has made wide-ranging contributions in these fields over the past 40 years in industry as well as at the University of California, Irvine’s Advanced Power and Energy Program, where he is currently its chief scientist for Power Systems. Prior to joining the university, Dr. Rao had worked in industry for more than 30 years, and due to this unique combination of industry experience and academia, he has been able to make significant contributions at the university as exemplified by his various publications in the energy conversion technologies area. His combination of scientific activity with practical solutions has resulted in high-quality publications that have always stimulated other scientists and engineers to study and develop his ideas. A variety of energy systems studied by Dr. Rao in his scientific activity range from advanced gas turbines to integrated gasification combined cycles to fuel cell–based power systems. His hands-on experience in working with today’s young engineers and students points out the gaps in their knowledge bases and forms a good basis for making this book complete.

Prior to joining the university, he had worked for 25 years at Fluor Corporation, a world-class engineering company that employed more than 40,000 international employees. Due to his leadership role and expertise in energy technology, he was made a director in Process Engineering and his responsibilities included the development of a variety of energy conversion processes while minimizing the impact on the environment, for electric power generation using gas turbines, reciprocating internal combustion engines, combined cycles, and fuel cells as well as the production of hydrogen, synthesis gas1 (or syngas for short), Fischer–Tropsch liquids, ammonia, alcohols, and dimethyl ether from coal, petroleum coke, biomass, liquid hydrocarbons, and natural gas. He was honored by Fluor in 1994 for his pioneering work in the advancement of energy systems including his work on the Humid Air Turbine cycle, a major internationally acknowledged achievement, by making him a technical fellow. He was later made a senior fellow at Fluor for continuing his significant contributions in the area of energy conversion. He was also honored by the California Engineering Council for his contributions in the area of energy conversion. Being recognized as a world-class leader in power cycles, he was invited to be the associate editor for the ASME Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power and a keynote speaker at the 2011 International Conference on Applied Energy, Perugia, Italy. He also has a number of patents to his credit in the field of energy conversion. He has authored a chapter titled “Gas fired combined cycle plants,” for a book Advanced Power Plant Materials, Design and Technology, Woodhead Publishing, and completed a book as its principal editor titled Combined Cycle Systems for Near-Zero Emission Power Generation, also for Woodhead Publishing. More recently, he completed a chapter titled “Evaporative gas turbine (EvGT)/humid air turbine (HAT) cycles,” for a book Handbook of Clean Energy Systems, for John-Wiley.

NOTE

1

This is the name borrowed from the petrochemical industry, the gas composition being similar to gas used to synthesize petrochemicals.