Micro turbines

Technology Comparison Diesel Engine Gas Engine Simple Cycle Gas Turbine Micro Turbine Fuel Cell Solar Energy Photovoltic Cell Wind Bio Mass River Hydro... 

Micro-Turbines. These turbines are in the range from 20kW-350kW. The growth of these turbines has been dramatie from the late 1990s, as there is an upsurge in the distributed generation market. 

Figure 1-15. A compact micro-turbine schematic. (Courtesy Capstone Corporation.)...

Capstone Micro Turbine Sales Literature, Simple Cycle Micro Turbine Power Generation System, 2000, Chatsworth. California. 

Ingersoll-Rand Corporation, Cogeneration System Package for Micro-Turbines, Sales Literature—2000, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 

Gas flows are encountered in many microsystems like micro-motors, micro-turbines, micro-sensors, and microfluidic systems in the presence of air or gas environment. Since the ratio of surface area to volume increases in such microsystems, surface forces become dominant over the body forces, and gas flows have great affects on the performance and reliability of many microdevices. 

The carbonate ions are transported towards the anode electrode through the electrolyte, which is an eutectic carbonate melt The cathodic exhaust gas leaves the fuel cell and, due to its high temperature of about 500 °C, it can be used for subsequent steam generation, for additional production of electric energy via a micro turbine or for other purposes. 

There are other options for generating small amounts of electricity locally, including micro-turbines fueled by natural gas, diesel engines, and PVs. Micro-turbines can also help... 

Most of the MEMS-based micro turbine devices demonstrated to date consisted of deep reactive... 

Lasseter R., 2001. Dynamic models for micro-turbines and fuel cells. PES Summer Meeting, Vol. 2, pp. 761-766. 

Torres N, Duch M, Santander J et al (2009) Porous Silicon Membrane for Micro Fuel Cell Application J. New Mater electrochem Syst 12(2-3) 93-96 Torres N, Duch M, Santander J et al (2009) Si micro-turbine by proton beam writing and porous silicon micromachining. Nucl Instr Meth Phys Res Sect B-Beam Interact Mater Atoms 267(12-13) 2292-2295... 

The current trend towards decentralised power generation has generated interest in small scale, or micro-combined heat and power plant - micro-CHP. While these units can have power outputs of a few kW, the other micro concept relates to the gas turbine alone. While the typical micro-CHP unit is not intensified in our recognition of the term, the micro-turbines proposed with outputs of a few tens of Watts enter the arena currently inhabited by micro-fuel cells. Thus, uses in portable electronic equipment, micro-aerial vehicles, nano-satellites and other similar-sized devices are put forward as reasons for the development of such small turbines. 

It is the manufacturing technology - exemplified by the micro-turbines discussed above - that is important to both microelectronics and micro-intensified processes, and those involved in the latter can learn much from the former. See, for example, Helvajian, 1999. The links between refrigeration cycles and electronics thermal control has also spawned some micro-refrigerators that can incorporate PI technology (see Section 11.2). 

Figure 11.14 reprinted from Riband, Y. La micro turbine L example du MIT. Mec. Ind., Vol. 2, pp. 411-420,2001, (in French), with permission from Elsevier. 

A third could be converted in fuel cells and/or micro-turbines to electricity for distribution throughout the district. 

By mid century, district-level conversion of hydrogen to electricity - as opposed to conversion of heat to electricity at the STAR reactors sited at the city perimeter - is envisioned for several reasons. The first - and the one, which is already driving a transition -is supply reliability. Micro-turbines and (imminently) fuel cells could provide secure electricity at a district level, even if the broader grid suffers a shutdown, because they run on a storable supply - currently natural gas, but eventually hydrogen. Some planners believe that distributed generators will, in fact, eventually drive the grid. 

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