Enhancement of novel water battery by surface additive treatment on porous media

• Main Author: Razali Mohamed Shariff
• Other Authors: Charles Yang
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Alternative, renewable energy sources
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/53567
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Renewable energy represents long term alternative compared to finite, environmentally unfriendly fossil fuel energy sources. One such renewable energy that is often overlooked is renewable energy that can be harness from salinity gradient. This project strives to harness renewable energy from salinity gradient by combining Forward Osmosis (FO) and Electrokinetic (EK) principles. FO utilizes difference in salt concentration to induce flow from low concentration feed side to the high concentration draw side through a semi-permeable membrane. It is a natural phenomenon that occurs spontaneously. Thus, the feed in draw solution can be fresh river water and sea water respectively. The water flow that is created by the FO can be channeled to flow through a micro-channel where electricity can be generated due to EK phenomena. The micro-channel used for this project is porous glass. The project focuses on the enhancement of the power generation through surface modification of the silica glass porous media, and the effects of ultrasonic treatment of the porous media. The surfactant used for surface modification is Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate (SDS). Through all the experimental runs and in depth analysis of the result, it is conclusive that the ultrasonic pre-treatment of the porous glass and surface treatment with 12 mM of (SDS) solution gives the best performance. The power density achieved is 3.08 W/m3 which an increase of 24.17% increase compared to porous glass that is not pre-treated with ultrasonic and without any surface treatment. Moreover, the ultrasonic pre-treatment of the porous glass also produces more predictable and consistent results.