This book is devoted to the development of the shape memory materials and their applications. It covers many aspects of smart materials. It also describes the method on how we can obtain not only large recovery strains but also high recovery stress, energy storage and energy dissipation in applications. This volume treats the mechanical properties of shape memory alloys, shape memory polymers and the constitutive equations of the materials which are necessary to design the shape memory elements in applications. It also deals with the fatigue properties of materials, the method to design the shape memory elements, and the shape memory composites. The authors are international experts on shape memory alloys and shape memory polymers in the metallurgical, chemical, mechanical and engineering fields. The book will be of interest to graduate students, engineers, scientists and designers who are working in the field of electric and mechanical engineering, industries, medical engineering, aerospace engineering, robots, automatic machines, clothes and recycling for research, design and manufacturing.

This book shows how severe plastic deformation techniques could be used to enhance the hydrogen storage properties of metal hybrides. The mechanochemical techniques of ball-milling (BM), Cold Rolling (CR), Equal Chanel Angular Pressing (ECAP) and High Pressure Torsion (HPT) are covered. Each technique is described and critically assessed with respect to its usefulness to process metal hybrides at an industrial scale.

This volume provides expert coverage of the state-of-the-art in sol-gel materials for functional applications in energy, environment and electronics. The use of sol-gel technology has become a hotbed for cutting edge developments in many fields due to the accessibility of advanced materials through low energy processes. The book offers a broad view of this growing research area from basic science through high-level applications with the potential for commercialization and industrial use. Taking an integrated approach, expert chapters present a wide range of topics, from photocatalysts, solar cells and optics, to thin films and materials for energy storage and conversion, demonstrating the combined use of chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering in the search for solutions to some of the most challenging problems of our time.

This book focuses on the design, fabrication and applications of carbon-based materials for lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries. It provides insights into the localized electrochemical transition of the "solid-solid" reaction instead of the "sulfur-polysulfides-lithium sulfides" reaction through the desolvation effect in subnanometer pores; demonstrates that the dissolution/diffusion of polysulfide anions in electrolyte can be greatly reduced by the strong binding of sulfur to the oxygen-containing groups on reduced graphene oxide; manifests that graphene foam can be used as a 3D current collector for high sulfur loading and high sulfur content cathodes; and presents the design of a unique sandwich structure with pure sulfur between two graphene membranes as a very simple but effective approach to the fabrication of Li-S batteries with ultrafast charge/discharge rates and long service lives. The book offers an invaluable resource for researchers, scientists, and engineers in the field of energy storage, providing essential insights, useful methods, and practical ideas that can be considered for the industrial production and future application of Li-S batteries.

This book presents an innovative methodology for identifying optimum investment strategies in the power industry. To do so, it examines results including, among others, the impact of oxy-fuel technology on CO2 emissions prices, and the specific cost of electricity production. The technical and economic analysis presented here extend the available knowledge in the field of investment optimization in energy engineering, while also enabling investors to make decisions involving its application. Individual chapters explore the potential impacts of different factors like environmental charges on costs connected with investments in the power sector, as well as discussing the available technologies for heat and power generation. The book offers a valuable resource for researchers, market analysts, decision makers, power engineers and students alike.

Have you ever wondered by how much CO2 emissions can be reduced by running cars electrically or with hydrogen as fuel? This Brief provides a quantitative answer to this question using the example of the combined road traffic in Spain. The authors calculate the resulting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the production of hydrogen gas or the required electricity and installing and maintaining the necessary infrastructure. In this way, they can compare with the GHG emissions in the present situation of oil fueled cars. Using different scenarios, they obtain an assessment how much 'greener' the electric or hydrogen cars can get.The method described in this Brief is scalable and readily adaptable to other countries. It can thus be used for investigating sensible approaches and developing recommendations for a conversion. As expected, the results depend strongly on the production scenarios for hydrogen or electricity production. The wrong choice can even result in increased GHG emissions. A proper choice of the roadmap toward a more sustainable and greener future is of greatest importance - the results described in this Brief can serve as a valuable and useful guide on our way.

This thesis focuses on the synthesis and characterization of various carbon allotropes (e.g., graphene oxide/graphene, graphene foam (GF), GF/carbon nanotube (CNT) hybrids) and their composites for electrochemical energy storage applications. The coverage ranges from materials synthesis to electrochemical analysis, to state-of-the-art electrochemical energy storage devices, and demonstrates how electrochemical characterization techniques can be integrated and applied in the active materials selection and nanostructure design process. Readers will also discover the latest findings on graphene-based electrochemical energy storage devices including asymmetric supercapacitors, lithium ion batteries and flexible Ni/Fe batteries. Given the unique experimental procedures and methods, the systematic electrochemical analysis, and the creative flexible energy storage device design presented, the thesis offers a valuable reference guide for researchers and newcomers to the field of carbon-based electrochemical energy storage.

This edited volume presents research results of the PPP European Green Vehicle Initiative (EGVI), focusing on electric vehicle batteries. Electrification is one road towards sustainable road transportation, and battery technology is one of the key enabling technologies. However, at the same time, battery technology is one of the main obstacles for a broad commercial launch of electric vehicles. This book includes research contributions which try to bridge the gap between research and innovation in the field of battery technology for electric vehicles. The target audience primarily comprises researchers and experts in the field.

This book focuses on novel reduced cell and stack models for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and planar solid oxide fuel cells (P-SOFCs) that serve to reduce the computational cost by two orders of magnitude or more with desired numerical accuracy, while capturing both the average properties and the variability of the dependent variables in the 3D counterparts. The information provided can also be applied to other kinds of plate-type fuel cells whose flow fields consist of parallel plain channels separated by solid ribs. These fast and efficient models allow statistical sensitivity analysis for a sample size in the order of 1000 without prohibitive computational cost to be performed to investigate not only the individual, but also the simultaneous effects of a group of varying geometrical, material, and operational parameters. This provides important information for cell/stack design, and to illustrate this, Monte Carlo simulation of the reduced P-SOFC model is conducted at both the single-cell and stack levels.

In this book well-known experts highlight cutting-edge research priorities and discuss the state of the art in the field of solid oxide fuel cells giving an update on specific subjects such as protonic conductors, interconnects, electrocatalytic and catalytic processes and modelling approaches.Fundamentals and advances in this field are illustrated to help young researchers address issues in the characterization of materials and in the analysis of processes, not often tackled in scholarly books.

This book reviews and characterises promising single-compound solvents, solvent blends and advanced solvent systems suitable for CO2 capture applications using gas-liquid absorption. Focusing on energy efficient solvents with minimal adverse environmental impact, the contributions included analyse the major technological advantages, as well as research and development challenges of promising solvents and solvent systems in various sustainable CO2 capture applications. It provides a valuable source of information for undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as for chemical engineers and energy specialists.

This book describes recent breakthroughs that promise major cost reductions in solar energy production in a clear and highly accessible manner. The author addresses the three key areas that have commonly resulted in criticism of solar energy in the past: cost, availability, and variability. Coverage includes cutting-edge information on recently developed 40 efficient solar cells, which can produce double the power of currently available commercial cells. The discussion also highlights the potentially transformative emergence of opportunities for integration of solar energy storage and natural gas combined heat and power systems. Solar energy production in the evening hours is also given fresh consideration via the convergence of low cost access to space and the growing number of large terrestrial solar electric power fields around the world. Dr. Fraas has been active in the development of Solar Cells and Solar Electric Power Systems for space and terrestrial applications since 1975. His research team at Boeing demonstrated the first GaAs/GaSb tandem concentrator solar cell in 1989 with a world record energy conversion efficiency of 35 , garnering awards from Boeing and NASA. He has over 30 years of experience at Hughes Research Labs, Chevron Research Co, and the Boeing High Technology Center working with advanced semiconductor devices. In a pioneering paper, he proposed the InGaP/GaInAs/Ge triple junction solar cell predicting a cell terrestrial conversion efficiency of 40 at 300 suns concentration. Having become today's predominant cell for space satellites, that cell is now entering high volume production for terrestrial Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) systems. Since joining JX Crystals, Dr. Fraas has pioneered the development of various thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems based on the new GaSb infrared sensitive PV cell. Dr. Fraas holds degrees from Caltech (B.Sc. Physics), Harvard (M. A. Applied Physics), and USC (Ph.D. EE).

Global experts provide an authoritative source of information on the use of electrochemical fuel cells, and in particular discuss the use of nanomaterials to enhance the performance of existing energy systems. The book covers the state of the art in the design, preparation, and engineering of nanoscale functional materials as effective catalysts for fuel cell chemistry, highlights recent progress in electrocatalysis at both fuel cell anode and cathode, and details perspectives and challenges in future research.

The third volume of 'Frontiers of Electrochemistry' concentrates on materials science. It provides a review of recent progress in the study of the electrochemical properties of novel materials and describes advances in the development of electrode materials for photoelectrochemistry, polymeric materials and insertion compounds for Lithium batteries. The book provides a careful description of electrochemistry of carbon, thin polymer film coated electrodes, electrocatalytic metal-oxide electrodes, electrochemistry of nuclear fuels and electrochemistry of clays and zeolites. The selection of excellent review articles was written by the best experts in their field of research. The book will interest electrochemists, materials scientists, electrochemical engineers, and other scientists in academic and industrial settings. In the preface, the editors point out that each chapter provides sufficient background material so that it can be read and appreciate by specialists and non specialists alike

This book contains a novel combination of experimental and model-based investigations, elucidating the complex processes inside zinc air batteries. The work presented helps to answer which battery composition and which air-composition should be adjusted to maintain stable and efficient charge/discharge cycling. In detail, electrochemical investigations and X-ray transmission tomography are applied on button cell zinc air batteries and in-house set-ups. Moreover, model-based investigations of the battery anode and the impact of relative humidity, active operation, carbon dioxide and oxygen on zinc air battery operation are presented. The techniques used in this work complement each other well and yield an unprecedented understanding of zinc air batteries. The methods applied are adaptable and can potentially be applied to gain further understanding of other metal air batteries.

This second edition of the highly successful dictionary offers more than 300 new or revised terms. A distinguished panel of electrochemists provides up-to-date, broad and authoritative coverage of 3000 terms most used in electrochemistry and energy research as well as related fields, including relevant areas of physics and engineering. Each entry supplies a clear and precise explanation of the term and provides references to the most useful reviews, books and original papers to enable readers to pursue a deeper understanding if so desired. Almost 600 figures and illustrations elaborate the textual definitions. The "Electrochemical Dictionary" also contains biographical entries of people who have substantially contributed to electrochemistry. From reviews of the first edition: 'the creators of the Electrochemical Dictionary have done a laudable job to ensure that each definition included here has been defined in precise terms in a clear and readily accessible style' (The Electric Review) 'It is a must for any scientific library, and a personal purchase can be strongly suggested to anybody interested in electrochemistry' (Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry) 'The text is readable, intelligible and very well written' (Reference Reviews)

This book discusses the physics of the dynamics of ions in various ionically conducting materials, and applications including electrical energy generation and storage. The experimental techniques for measurements and characterization, molecular dynamics simulations, the theories of ion dynamics, and applications are all addressed by the authors, who are experts in their fields. The experimental techniques of measurement and characterization of dynamics of ions in glassy, crystalline, and liquid ionic conductors are introduced with the dual purpose of introducing the reader to the experimental activities of the field, and preparing the reader to understand the physical quantities derived from experiments. These experimental techniques include calorimetry, conductivity relaxation, nuclear magnetic resonance, light scattering, neutron scattering, and others. Methods of molecular dynamics simulations are introduced to teach the reader to utilize the technique for practical applications to specific problems. The results elucidate the dynamics of ions on some issues that are not accessible by experiments. The properties of ion dynamics in glassy, crystalline and liquid ionic conductors brought forth by experiments and simulations are shown to be universal, i.e. independent of physical and chemical structure of the ionic conductor as long as ion-ion interaction is the dominant factor. Moreover these universal properties of ion dynamics are shown to be isomorphic to other complex interacting systems including the large class of glass-forming materials with or without ionic conductivity.By covering the basic concepts, theories/models, experimental techniques and data, molecular dynamics simulations, and relating them together, Dynamics of Glassy, Crystalline and Liquid Ionic Conductors will be of great interest to many in basic and applied research areas from the broad and diverse communities of condensed matter physicists, chemists, materials scientists and engineers. The book also provides the fundamentals for an introduction to the field and it is written in such a way that can be used for teaching courses either at the undergraduate or graduate level in academic institutions.

This book provides comprehensive coverage of Lithium (Li) metal anodes for rechargeable batteries. Li is an ideal anode material for rechargeable batteries due to its extremely high theoretical specific capacity (3860 mAh g-1), low density (0.59 g cm-3), and the lowest negative electrochemical potential ( 3.040 V vs. standard hydrogenelectrodes). Unfortunately, uncontrollable dendritic Li growth and limited Coulombic efficiency during Li deposition/stripping inherent in these batteries have prevented their practical applications over the past 40 years. With the emergence of post Liion batteries, safe and efficient operation of Li metal anodes has become an enabling technology which may determine the fate of several promising candidates for the next generation energy storage systems, including rechargeable Li-air batteries, Li-S batteries, and Li metal batteries which utilize intercalation compounds as cathodes. In this work, various factors that affect the morphology and Coulombic efficiency of Li anodes are analyzed. The authors also present the technologies utilized to characterize the morphology of Li deposition and the results obtained by modeling of Li dendrite growth. Finally, recent developments, especially the new approaches that enable safe and efficient operation of Li metal anodes at high current densities are reviewed. The urgent need and perspectives in this field are also discussed. The fundamental understanding and approaches presented in this work will be critical for the applicationof Li metal anodes. The general principles and approaches can also be used in other metal electrodes and general electrochemical deposition of metal films.

This book presents a detailed technical overview of short- and long-term materials and design challenges to zinc/bromine flow battery advancement, the need for energy storage in the electrical grid and how these may be met with the Zn/Br system. Practical interdisciplinary pathways forward are identified via cross-comparison and comprehensive review of significant findings from more than 300 published works, with clear in-depth explanations spanning initial RFB development to state-of-the-art research in related systems. Promising strategies described include the use of modern electrochemical techniques to study and optimize physical processes occurring within the system during operation, improving zinc electroplating quality during the charge phase through the strategic use of organic additives, as well as identifying suitable catalysts to optimize the bromine/bromide redox couple. The primary focus is on research and development of novel materials in the areas of electrolyte formulation and multifunctional "smart" electrode surfaces to achieve a higher degree of control over processes at the electrode-electrolyte interface. The strategies suggested in this book are also highly adaptable for use in other similar flow battery systems, while the unique cross-comparative approach makes it a useful reference and source of new ideas for both new and established researchers in the field of energy storage and battery technology.

Gaining public attention due, in part,  to their potential application as energy storage devices in cars, Lithium-ion batteries have encountered widespread demand, however, the understanding of lithium-ion technology has often lagged behind production. This book defines the most commonly encountered challenges from the perspective of a high-end lithium-ion manufacturer with two decades of experience with lithium-ion batteries and over six decades of experience with batteries of other chemistries. Authors with years of experience in the applied science and engineering of lithium-ion batteries gather to share their view on where lithium-ion technology stands now, what are the main challenges, and their possible solutions. The book contains real-life examples of how a subtle change in cell components can have a considerable effect on cell’s performance. Examples are supported with approachable basic science commentaries. Providing a unique combination of practical know-how with an in-depth perspective, this book will appeal to graduate students, young faculty members, or others interested in the current research and development trends in lithium-ion technology.

The book focuses on the solid-state physics, chemistry and electrochemistry that are needed to grasp the technology of and research on high-power Lithium batteries. After an exposition of fundamentals of lithium batteries, it includes experimental techniques used to characterize electrode materials, and a comprehensive analysis of the structural, physical, and chemical properties necessary to insure quality control in production. The different properties specific to each component of the batteries are discussed in order to offer manufacturers the capability to choose which kind of battery should be used: which compromise between power and energy density and which compromise between energy and safety should be made, and for which cycling life. Although attention is primarily on electrode materials since they are paramount in terms of battery performance and cost, different electrolytes are also reviewed in the context of safety concerns and in relation to the solid-electrolyte interface. Separators are also reviewed in light of safety issues. The book is intended not only for scientists and graduate students working on batteries but also for engineers and technologists who want to acquire a sound grounding in the fundamentals of battery science arising from the interaction of electrochemistry, solid state materials science, surfaces and interfaces.

This book describes in detail the use of natural cellulose fibers for the production of innovative, low-cost, and easily recyclable lithium-ion (Li-ion) cells by means of fast and reliable papermaking procedures that employ water as a solvent. In addition, it proposes specific methods to optimize the safety features of these paper-based cells and to improve the electronic conductivity of the electrodes by means of a carbonization process- an interesting novel technology that enables higher current rate capabilities to be achieved. The in-depth descriptions of materials, methods, and techniques are complemented by the inclusion of a general overview of electrochemical devices and, in particular, of different Li-ion battery configurations. Presenting the outcomes of this important research, the work is of wide interest to electrochemical engineers in both research institutions and industry.

This thesis outlines the investigation of various electrode materials for Li-ion battery (LIB) applications. Li-ion batteries are widely used in various portable electronic devices owing to their compactness, light weight, longer life, design flexibility and environment friendliness. This work describes the detailed synthesis and structural studies of various novel phosphate based cathode materials and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) composites as anode materials. Their electrochemical characterization as electrode for LIBs has been investigated in detail. The thesis also includes a comprehensive introduction for non-specialists in this field. The research could benefit and will appeal to scientists, especially new researchers working in the field of energy storage.

The book offers a comprehensive report on the design and optimization of a thermochemical heat storage system for use in buildings. It combines theoretical and experimental work, with a special emphasis on model-based methods. It describes the numerical modeling of the heat exchanger, which allows recovery of about two thirds of the waste heat from both solar and thermal energy. The book also provides readers with a snapshot of current research on thermochemical storage systems, and an in-depth review of the most important concepts and methods in thermal management modeling. It represents a valuable resource for students, engineers and researchers interested in thermal energy storage processes, as well as for those dealing with modeling and 3D simulations in the field of energy and process engineering.

This book focuses on the fundamental principles and recent progress in the field of electrical and thermal properties of polymer nanocomposites. The physical and chemical natures determining the electrical and thermal properties of polymer nanocomposites are discussed in detail. The authors describe the range of traditional and emerging polymer nanocomposites from nanoparticle and polymer composites to novel nanostructure based polymer nanocomposites. They include novel properties and potential applications, such as high-k, low-k, high thermal conductivity, antistatic, high voltage insulation, electric stress control, and thermal energy conversion among others.