Simulation and Performance Analysis of Six Types of Sun Tracker Approaches:A Comparative Analysis for Solar Concentrating Technology Application at Burkina Faso

Modelization equations of six approaches for tracking the sun are recalled and used to evaluate the constraints and performances to which they lead to.The geographical study case is taken for the specific latitude of 12 North that is a good matching with the location of the country of Burkina Faso.Three decisive periods were locally established in order to consider the different travels of the sun on sky during one year.This work presents some technical data which facilitates the choice of sun tracking approaches with concern of a concentrator limits such as its angle of acceptance,its motion control card interpolation model,or its minimum irradiation level for energy conversion effectiveness.

Impact of Improved Cookstoves on the Level of Household Exposure to CO and PM2.5 in Sub-Saharan Cities: The Case of the City of Ouagadougou

Air pollution is one of the major global threats to human health. In Burkina Faso, more than 80% of the population uses solid fuels as the main source of cooking energy. This paper reports a comparative study on the exposure of household to the carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM2.5) emitted by improved cookstoves (ICS) or traditional cookstoves (TCS). A cross-sectional study was conducted in the city of Ouagadougou for 4 months during the rainy season (July to October) in households with an outdoor kitchen. The investigation involved 92 households where air pollutants, such as PM2.5 and CO were measured with Indoor Air Pollution Meters (IAP meter). These measurements were focused on the concentration levels of the pollutants during cooking. The results of this study show high levels of PM2.5 and CO for all type of stoves. Wood stoves led to higher PM2.5 and lower CO emissions than charcoal stoves. ICS reduce emissions of indoor air pollutants compared to TCS. This reduction raised up to 82% for PM2.5 and 37% for CO. The analysis of the data measured with the student test (t-test) shows that there is a statistically significant difference between the average values of the concentrations of the pollutants emitted with the TCS compared to ICS, except for CO emissions measured on multi-pot sizes cookstoves (MM). This study shows that the concentrations of indoor air pollutants are very high regardless of the type of cookstoves used. The CO exposure obtained varies from 119.10 to 362.72 μg/m3 for 15-minute and 10.83 - 55.11 μg/m3 for 1-hour exposure. The exposure in PM2.5 varies from 4762 to 16,257 μg/m3 for 15-minute and 106.63 to 1597 μg/m3 for 1-hour of exposure. It was noted that the CO exposure levels obtained over 15-minute of exposure are 1.36 to 4.15 times higher than the WHO recommendation and 1.8 times higher for an exposure time of one hour. This means that women in charge of cooking have a high risk of exposure to air pollutants.

Experimental Study on Performance and Combustion Analysis of a Diesel Engine Fueled with Diesel and Jatropha Oil Blended with Heptane

This work focuses on blending Jatropha oil with diesel fuel and heptane to improve its physico-chemical characteristics for production of blends and their use as fuel in a diesel engine. The influence of the heptane content was evaluated by comparing the results obtained from the engine (performance and combustion parameters) with those of the diesel fuel and straight Jatropha oil. The results obtained show an improvement in engine performance especially at low loads. Specifically, a reduction in the specific fuel consumption of the engine is obtained when the heptane content in the mixture is around 10% compared to that obtained with pure Jatropha oil. The best results were obtained with the blend containing 70% Jatropha oil, 20% diesel fuel and 10% heptane (J70G20H10). Overall engine efficiency and exhaust gas temperatures are comparable for all fuels tested. Engine combustion parameters are improved with J70G20H10. The results obtained with J70G20H10 are close to those of the engine operating on diesel fuel. The cyclic dispersion is low with coefficients of variation of the indicated mean effective pressure (COVIMEP) whose values are less than 10%. The lowest values of the COVIMEP are obtained with the blend J70G20H10.

Performance Assessment of a Box Type Solar Cooker Using Jatropha Oil as a Heat Storage Material

Solar cookers are a good option in developing countries with high solar potential for environmentally friendly cooking and reduced pressure on forests. However, they are still affected by the intermittency of the sun. In order to overcome this problem, in this work, a box type solar cooker integrated Jatropha oil as a heat storage material is fabricated and experimented with. The design was examined with a maximum stagnation temperature of 157.7°C. The recorded cooking power vanished between 78.4 and 103.6 W, while thermal efficiency varied from 41.26% to 58.78%. The energy transfer cycle test, including charge and discharge revealed that 91.18% of the heat lost through the cooker could be recovered by the heat storage unit and a large amount is restored to the system during cloudiness or a temperature perturbation.

Development of Sensible Heat Storage Materials Using Sand, Clay and Coal Bottom Ash

In this paper, the mechanical and thermal properties of a sand-clay ceramic with additives coal bottom ash (CBA) waste from incinerator coal power plant are investigated to develop an alternative material for thermal energy storage (TES). Ceramic balls are developed at 1000°C and 1060°C using sintering or firing method. The obtained ceramics were compressed with a compression machine and thermally analyse using Decagon devise KD2 Pro thermal analyser. A muffle furnace was also used for thermal cycling at 610°C. It was found that the CBA increased the porosity, which resulted in the increase of the axial tensile strength reaching 3.5 MPa for sand-clay and ash ceramic. The ceramic balls with the required tensile strength for TES were selected. Their volumetric heat capacity, and thermal conductivity range respectively from 2.4075 MJ·m-3·°C-1 to 3.426 MJ·m-3·°C-1 and their thermal conductivity from 0.331 Wm-1·K-1, to 1.014 Wm-1·K-1 depending on sand origin, size and firing temperature. The selected formulas have good thermal stability because the most fragile specimens after 60 thermal cycles did not present any cracks. These properties allow envisioning the use of the ceramic balls developed as filler material for thermocline thermal energy storage (structured beds) in Concentrating Solar Power plants. And for other applications like solar cooker and solar dryer.

Contribution to the Design of a Pottery Kiln Using as Fuel a Mixture of Cellulosic and Plastic Materials: Influence of the Proportion of Plastic on the Emissions of NO, CO₂, O₂

This paper concerns the study of the influence of the proportion of plastic from polyethylene, on the yields of gas emissions during the combustion of the mixture of “millet stalks and polyethylene plastic bags”, in a prototype of kiln of potters. During these investigations, we looked at the rate of residual oxygen (O2) and emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen monoxide (NO), as a function of primary air flow (Q1) and secondary airflow (Q2). The potter’s kilns are considered those fueled by natural air flow. The primary air flows ranging from 45 to 85 Nm3?h 1 and secondary air flows from 20 to 60 Nm3?h 1. To conduct this numerical study, the model used is “reactor” based on the code CHEMKIN II. The modeled area is composed into a multitude of perfectly stirred reactors (PSR) and the kinetic model has 893 species and 113 reversible chemical reactions. The results show that in our test conditions, the increasing of the rate of plastic in the mixture produces a decrease of the residual oxygen content, due to higher oxygen consumption regardless of the airflow. The CO2 emissions are an increasing function of the rate of plastic (polyethylene) in the fuel mixture. Finally, NO emissions are increasing functions of the mass of plastic for a proportions less than or equal to 20%, and are essentially controlled by the temperature of the reactional medium.

Thermal Degradation of Polyethylene Bags and Millet Stalks: Influence of the Temperature and the Local Concentration of Oxygen on the Conversion Rate of Carbon

This paper concerns the influence of temperature and local concentration of oxygen on the conversion efficiency of carbon into CO, CO2, CH4, C3H8, C2H4, C2H2, C2H6, C6H6, during the thermal degradation of plastic bags and millet stalks. The experimental device used is the tubular kiln, coupled to an analyzer Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and a Non Dispersive Infrared analyzer (NDIR). Temperatures are considered between 800 and 1000°C. Local concentrations of oxygen during thermal degradation are 0%, 10% and 21%. On the one hand results obtained on the influence of temperature show that for each type of thermal degradation and whatever the temperature of the combustion, the rate of conversion of carbon remains substantially the same. In the case of plastic bags, the rate of carbon converted during pyrolysis is about 90% of carbon converted during reductive combustion. On the other hand, with millet stalks, the carbon converted represents only 60% of the rate of carbon converted during combustion to 10% oxygen. 1 to 2% of carbon not analyzed is in the form of aromatic compounds that are found most often in the soot and/or tar from this combustion system. Moreover, whatever the temperature, the overall efficiency of carbon conversion increases linearly with the local concentration of oxygen. During the thermal degradation of plastic bags, we see that the reducer environment has fostered the conversion of 7% of carbon more while the presence of oxygen in double proportion promotes the conversion of 27% carbon. Regarding the influence of the local content of oxygen, it is clear that for plastic bags, the reactions of oxidation of CO into CO2 tend to be favored for the benefit of those of hydrocarbons into CO. The formation of CO and CO2 by oxidation of light hydrocarbons is primarily from gaseous compounds CH4 and C2H4. At 950°C, we have also acetylene (C2H2) which is involved in the production of carbon oxides. At 1000°C, benzene (C6H6) heavily involved in the formation of CO and CO2. However, with millet stalks, more the local content of oxygen increases, more combustion is better, that is to say that the oxidation reactions producing CO2 are faster than the oxidation reactions of hydrocarbons into CO. The rate of carbon converted into CO and CO2 is higher for millet stalks than for plastic bags, due to this oxygen levels higher in millet stalks than in plastic bags. Similarly, for the millet stalks, from pyrolysis to combustion (at 10 and 21% oxygen), there is practically no hydrocarbon emitted.

Temperature Dependence of Density,Viscosity,Thermal Conductivity and Heat Capacity of Vegetable Oils for Their Use as Biofuel in Internal Combustion Engines

This work gives tools to overcome the difficulty to determine experimentally physical properties for vegetable oils within the range of temperature typically observed during the injection phase in a diesel engine. Knowing vegetable oils’ physical properties to these ranges of temperature is of fundamental importance when modeling their combustion in diesel engine. However, vegetable oils’ experimental physical properties data are rare in the literature for temperature above 523 K. This paper describes experimental measurements and estimation methods for density, dynamic viscosity, thermal conductivity and heat capacity of vegetable oils for this particular range of temperature. The methodology uses several correlative methods using group contribution approach for each property and compares experimental data with predicted one to select the more accurate model. This work has shown the rapeseed and jatropha oils’ physical properties can be satisfactorily predicted as a function of temperature using group contribution approach.