demonstration, innovation, learning, prototyping, sustainability, and energy

This article develops a model of sustainable energy demonstration projects, based on a review of 229 scientific publications on demonstrations in renewable and sustainable energy. The model addresses the basic organizational characteristics (aim, cooperative form, and physical location) and learning effects (technical, organizational, policy and market learning) of sustainable energy demonstration projects (prototyping, organizing, and market demonstrations). This article concludes that a main effect of the reviewed demonstrations is that these projects enable people to learn to further develop, apply and commercialize sustainable, renewable and clean energy technologies. They provide four specific learning opportunities; they 1) enable scientists and technicians to learn how to technically develop sustainable energy prototypes; 2) facilitate technicians and managers to learn to build an organization that produces these sustainable energy prototypes on a large(r) scale; 3) help public policy officers to learn to develop public policy that stimulates the commercialization process of these sustainable energy prototypes; and 4) support commercial professionals to learn how to bring sustainable energy prototypes to the market.

Adsorption, Refrigeration, Adsorbent, Activated carbon, and Methanol

This study presents adsorption cooling systems with silica gel and activated carbon as adsorbents. Adsorption cooling systems powered by low grade heat sources are presented here. Moreover, the previous experimental and numerical models are discussed. The study revealed that the performances of silica gel and activated carbon based adsorption cooling systems are still low and hence these systems are in the stage of demonstration and prototyping. It was concluded that there is still an opportunity for adopting more modern solar energy collecting and transferring technologies, and more advanced design optimization and simulation models. However, heat recovery, mass recovery, multi-bed and multi-stage technologies are promising technologies in improving the COP and SCP of these systems.

Magnetic refrigeration, Review, Reciprocating prototypes, and Operating mode

Various AMR refrigerators prototypes have been developed with a view to implementing magnetic refrigeration (MR) at room temperature in a short time. This article describes the working mode of the two basic categories into which these can be divided (reciprocating and rotary) and compares them to show the advantages and disadvantages offered. A review of the latest and most significant alternative linear prototypes is carried out, providing design concepts and performance characteristics. Such characteristics include the operating frequency, magnet field type and field strength, regenerator materials and geometry, and maximum temperature span and cooling capacity. Also included is a study carried out by the authors focused on the prototyping of an MR system aimed at avoiding the shortcomings of other prototypes manufactured to date.