Master of Science in Engineering, University of Akron, 2017, Civil Engineering

The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) uses approximately 700,000 tons of salt per year to keep their roads safe of icy conditions during the winter. Recently, ODOT has been experiencing extreme salt pricing in response to their county-by-county bid process. As a result, ODOT's annual cost for snow and ice removal reached approximately $86 million from its maintenance budget. The majority of expenses are accumulated by the procurement of rock salt. In order to identify recommendations for ODOT processes, a matrix of best and current practices was developed at the national, state, and city-level pertaining to winter maintenance. A thorough evaluation of variables which affect salt pricing was conducted. The transportation of salt as well as the delivery times were analyzed. It was concluded that winter salt orders, although modeled over $6.00 less expensive than summer, run a much higher risk of being delivered late. Therefore, a ten-step storage facility evaluation process was created to determine the vulnerability of a storage facility, the estimated cost to increase the capacity, and whether the facility may act as a regional storage location. This process gives ODOT the necessary tools to evaluate their storage facilities on a case-by-case basis due to the diverse environments such as weather found throughout the state of Ohio.

Committee: William Schneider IV Ph.D., P.E. (Advisor); Teresa Cutright Ph.D. (Committee Member); Qindan Huang Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Civil Engineering

Master of Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, 2022, Physics

The increasing adoption of renewable sources of electricity (i.e. wind and solar farms) is being driven by the demand for carbon neutral electricity production. Although zero carbon is emitted during electricity production, these renewable energy sources suffer from intermittency, which is a mismatch between the supply and demand of electricity of the grid. Renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, produce their peak electricity at off-demand periods of the day. This strains the electrical grid as it risks over-generation in some locations as well as a need for quick ramping of the electrical load which is hard on electricity producing infrastructure. As a partial solution to intermittency, pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is the dominant form of grid-scale energy storage. PSH accounts for 95% of the U.S. grid-scale storage capacity, which amounts to 22.9 GW of capacity [1]. The EIA also estimates with all possible sites, the U.S. can double their PSH capacity [1]. However, much more than that is not feasible being constrained by the availability of locations suitable for PSH. As a result, other gridscale energy storage options are in development. The main options include batteries, thermal energy storage, compressed air energy storage (CAES) and flywheels. However, these storage options are plagued by high cost per kWh prices, location specificity (ex. PSH, CAES) and/or low energy density. With these concerns in mind, Cratus LLC is developing a molten salt thermal energy storage option known as ThermaBlox, which is location-independent, low-cost, and high-capacity (with the capability to scale). ThermaBlox will play a significant role in intermittency reduction while enabling increased adoption rates of renewable energy.

Committee: Edward Caner (Committee Chair); Dr. Benjamin Monreal (Committee Member); Dr. Robert Brown (Committee Member) Subjects: Chemical Engineering; Energy; Engineering; Entrepreneurship; Fluid Dynamics; Mathematics; Nanotechnology; Physics; Technology

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2021, Chemical Engineering (Engineering and Technology)

Incorporation of potassium bifluoride (KF-HF) as an additive to lithium-halide electrolyte for thermal batteries was investigated. Results indicated that it is feasible to maintain a relatively high ionic conductivity at temperatures (250-300 C) lower than current thermal battery electrolytes (400-550 C). Mixtures of lithium fluoride and potassium bifluorides with the 40-60 wt.% provided the best ionic conductivity at 260 C. Ceramic felts are shown to be an effective alternative to widely used MgO. One of the major benefits of ceramic felts is their high porosity and low weight. LiSi/FeS2 thermal cells with YSZ and Al2O3 ceramic felt electrolyte/separators reported specific energy of 58.47 Wh kg-1 and 43.96 Wh kg-1. Pellet design pyrite (FeS2) cathodes for thermal batteries usually have low electronic conductivity. A new cathode design was developed using iron particles. By adding 11 wt.% Fe particles to the cathode the ohmic polarization was reduced by 17.5% while the available capacity was increased by 78% over the cell with traditional cathode pellet with no electrically conductive particle additives.

Committee: Gerardine Botte (Advisor); Valerie Young (Advisor) Subjects: Chemical Engineering; Energy; Engineering

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Engineering and Applied Science: Mechanical Engineering

One of the major steps taken against global warming is to reduce the dependency of fossil fuels that forms 78.9% of the primary energy consumed [1]. This effort is pushed forward primarily by designing more efficient systems and tapping in to renewable sources of power. Thermal energy storage (TES) systems provide numerous solutions for such challenges. Some of them include providing optimum temperature for system operation from chips in computers to condensers in thermal power-plants. TES also help to capture and store intermitted supply of solar energy for later use such as in concentrated solar power plants and district heating applications. It also has applications in HVAC, aviation and process industries [2]. With the increase in demand for such solutions the market for TES systems and Phase Change Materials is expect to double by 2023. This research explores salt hydrate based phase-change materials (PCM) that can store this heat. These salts are screened and promising ones are characterized based on their thermal properties and cycling stability. After screening several salt hydrate based PCM in the melting range of 25-35°C, Lithium Nitrate Trihydrate and Calcium Chloride Hexahydrate was chosen because of their relatively stable behavior. Firstly, the phase change temperature and the latent heat capacity was measured using the Lumped Capacitance T-History method. Following which a mDSC was used to measure the specific heat. Additionally, the density of the liquid and solid phase was also determined using Archimedes' Principle. After the initial characterization, the effects of nucleating agents on Lithium Nitrate Trihydrate (LNT) and Calcium Chloride Hexahydrate (CCH) was studied. CCH was doped with a known nucleating agent - SrCl2- which reduced subcooling to <4°C and thermal capacity to 167kJ/kg from 187kJ/kg. In the case of LNT a novel nucleating agent was discovered by conducting crystallographic using lattice mismatch technique. The new nucleating ag (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Raj Manglik Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Milind Jog Ph.D. (Committee Member); Navin Kumar Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Energy