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Evaporation-Cycle Heat Engines

Sunoba

Renewable Energy Systems

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

  

Welcome to the web site for Sunoba Pty Ltd.

 

This web site contains details of new heat engines that generate power through evaporative cooling of hot air at reduced pressure.  The principal target applications are

·         passive solar thermal power generation

·         booster for open-cycle gas turbines

 

In simple terms, heat engines turn heat energy into useful work.  They are used to generate electricity or provide mechanical power for vehicles and equipment.   Examples include Otto or Diesel engines for vehicles, Brayton engines for jet aeroplanes, and Rankine steam turbines to generate electricity.

 

The thermodynamic cycle for the evaporation engine involves

 

hot dry air + water → power + cooled moist air

 

This cycle was confirmed in an experimental evaporation engine that was tested successfully in mid 2008.  The evaporation engine can be built in either continuous-flow or piston-in-cylinder form.

 

A related technology is the condensation heat pump, which is based on condensation of water vapour in air at reduced pressure and has the opposite thermodynamic cycle to the evaporation engine.  Heat pumps are used to increase the temperature of the immediate environment; the  reverse-cycle air conditioner is a common example.

 

Please follow the links to find out more.

Media Releases

 

2011-12-14 Beyond-Carnot Heat Pump?

2011-08-16 Evaporation engine output

2011-07-16 ECET analysis to be published

2011-05-12 Launch of ECET

 

Presentations

 

Thermal Storage Simulations

(2012-04-11; 205 kB, PDF)

Annual Output of a Passive Solar Power Station

(2012-01-31; 1.1 MB, PDF)

Comparison of Levelised Electricity Costs for Large-Scale Solar Projects

(2011-08-23; 6.4 MB, PDF)

 

Blog posts for 2012

 

2012-05-17 Graduation speech (La Trobe)

2012-05-11 Cost of solar power – 24

2012-04-25 Cost of solar power – 23

2012-04-24 Cost of solar power – 22

2012-04-11 Cost of solar power – 21

2012-03-30 Cost of solar power – 20

2012-03-16 Thermal storage simulations

2012-03-11 Cost of solar power – 19

2012-02-24 Patent accepted

2012-02-16 Cost of solar power – 18

2012-02-07 Cost of solar power – 17

2012-01-23 Beyond-Carnot heat pump – 2

 

Blog posts for 2011

 

 

 

 

 

© Sunoba Pty Ltd

17 May 2012