Design and Analysis of a New Energy Harvesting Device Based on Knudsen Effect

	Clean Technology 2009 Chapter 2: Solar and PV Technologies
	Design and Analysis of a New Energy Harvesting Device Based on Knudsen Effect
Authors:	P. Zhang, R. Du
Affilation:	The Chinese University of HongKong, CN
Pages:	64 - 67
Keywords:	Knudsen compressor, DSMC, aerogel, solar energy
Abstract:	In this paper, a new energy harvesting method based on Knudsen compressor is proposed. We first study the possibility of Knudsen compressor working in near atmosphere pressure by Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method which described the gas flow from a molecular point of view. The gas flow against the Knudsen number is investigated by simulation to find the optimal condition for us to design a Knudsen compressor working near atmosphere pressure. The device is 11 m in size containing 1662 Knudsen compressors (each compressor is 402228 mm), with 16 are connected in series and 62 in parallel. A single stage Knudsen including base, aerogel membrane and Fresnel lens. The compressor can be driven by the solar radiation. Based on our simulation, in a typical tropical summer day, the device will generate 74.3W kinetic energy. Therefore, the energy conversion efficiency is 7.4 %.
ISBN:	978-1-4398-1787-2
Pages:	412
Order:	Online/Mail/Fax Ordering Options
Indexes:	Keywords, Authors, Affiliations
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Clean Technology 2009

Chapter 2: Solar and PV Technologies

Design and Analysis of a New Energy Harvesting Device Based on Knudsen Effect