Energy Storage
Energy Storage discusses the underlying fundamentals of all the major energy storage methods. These include the storage of energy as heat, in phase transitions and reversible chemical reactions, and in organic fuels and hydrogen, an important energy carri
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Robert A. Huggins
Energy Storage
Prof. Dr. Robert A. Huggins Stanford University Department of Materials Science & Engineering 94305-4034 Stanford California USA
ISBN 978-1-4419-1023-3 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-1024-0 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-1024-0 Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2010930686 # Springer ScienceþBusiness Media, LLC 2010 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface
Introduction Energy is necessary for a number of reasons, the most basic and obvious involve the preparation of food and the provision of heat to make life comfortable, or at least, bearable. Subsequently, a wide range of technological uses of energy have emerged and been developed, so that the availability of energy has become a central issue in society. The easiest way to acquire useful energy is to simply find it as wood or a hydrocarbon fossil fuel in nature. But it has often been found to be advantageous to convert what is simply available in nature into more useful forms, and the processing and conversion of raw materials, especially petrochemicals have become a very large industry.
Wood Wood has been used to provide heat for a great many years. In some cases, it can be acquired as needed by foraging, or cutting, followed by simple collection. When it is abundant there is relatively little need for it to be stored. However, many societies have found it desirable to collect more wood than is immediately needed during warm periods during the year, and to store it up for use in the winter, when the needs are greater, or its collection is not so convenient. One can still see this in some locations, such as the more remote communities in the Alps, for example. One might think of this as the oldest and simplest example of energy storage. It was discovered long ago that it is possible to heat wood under oxygen-poor conditions such that some of its volatile constituents are driven off, leaving a highly porous carbon-rich product called charcoal. Charcoal has a higher heating value per unit weight than the wood from which it was produced, approximately
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Preface
30,400 kJ kg1, instead of 14,700 kJ kg1. Thus, it is more efficient to store and to use to produce heat. This is an example of the conversion of a
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