Patent Grant
10060686
This invention relates to dry cooling systems, and in particular to scalable passive radiative cooling systems for power plants.
Large cooling systems play an important role in the generation of electricity. Most power plants generate electricity by way of converting a coolant (typically water) into a heated gaseous state (e.g., steam) using a heat source (e.g., a nuclear reactor core, a gas/coal/oil furnace, or a solar concentrator), and then passing the heated gaseous coolant through a generator (i.e., a rotating machine that converts mechanical power into electrical power). Before the coolant exiting the generator can be returned to the heat source, the coolant must be entirely reconverted from its gaseous state to its liquid state, which typically involves dissipating sufficient heat from the coolant to drop the coolant's temperature below its boiling point temperature. Due to the large volumes of coolant used in large power plants, this cooling function is typically performed by piping the coolant leaving the generators to large cooling systems disposed outside the power plant, whereby heat from the coolant is harmlessly dissipated into the surrounding environment. Failure to fully reconvert the coolant to its liquid state before returning to the power plant significantly reduces the power plant's efficiency. Hence, large cooling systems play and important role of in the generation of electricity.
Cooling systems can be categorized into two general classes: wet cooling systems that consume water (i.e., rely on evaporation to achieve the desired cooling power), and dry cooling systems that utilize convection or radiation to remove heat without consuming water. Generally speaking, a dry cooling system based on conventional technology would occupy a significantly larger area and require higher operating costs than a comparable wet cooling system capable of generating the same amount of cooling power. Hence, most large power plants, particularly those in hot and humid climate zones where traditional dry-cooling is impractical, utilize wet cooling systems that collectively consume enormous amounts of water (i.e., tens of billions of gallons of water per day). That is, when water is abundant and cheap, wet cooling systems can be significantly less expensive to build and operation than dry cooling systems based on conventional technology. However, in dry regions or regions experiencing curtailed water supplies (e.g., due to drought), the use of wet cooling systems can become problematic when precious water resources are necessarily diverted from residential or agricultural areas for use in a power plant.
Radiative cooling is a form of dry cooling in which heat dissipation is achieved by way of radiant energy. All objects constantly emit and absorb radiant energy, and undergo radiative cooling when the net energy flow is outward, but experience heat gain when the net energy flow is inward. For example, passive radiative cooling of buildings (i.e., radiative cooling achieved without consuming power, e.g., to turn a cooling fan) typically occurs during the night when long-wave radiation from the clear sky is less than the long-wave infrared radiation emitted from the building's rooftop. Conversely, during the daytime solar radiation directed onto the building's roof is greater than the emitted long-wave infrared radiation, and thus there is a net flow into the sky.
In simplified terms, the cooling power, Pcooling, of a radiating surface is equal to the radiated power, Prad, less the absorbed power from atmospheric thermal radiation from the air, Patm, the solar irradiance, Psun, and conduction and convection effects, Pcon:
Pcooling=Prad−Patm−Psun−Pcon (Equation 1)
In practical settings, Patm is determined by ambient temperature, Psun varies in accordance with time of day, cloud cover, etc., and is zero at nighttime, and Pcon is determined by structural details of the cooler. From Equation 1, maximizing Pcooling during daytime entails increasing Prad by increasing the emissivity of the surface, minimizing the effect of Psun (e.g., by making use of a broadband reflector), and mitigating convection and conduction effects Pcon by way of protecting the cooler from convective heat sources. Assuming a combined non-radiative heat coefficient of 6.9 W/m2K, Eq. 1 thus yields a practical minimum target Prad value of 55 W/m2 during daytime, and 100 W/m2 during nighttime, which translates into a drop in temperature around 5° C. below ambient.
An ideal high-performance passive radiative cooler can thus be defined as a passive radiative cooling device that satisfies the following three conditions. First, it reflects at least 94% of solar light (mostly at visible and near-infrared wavelengths) to prevent the cooling panel from heating up, hence minimizing Psun. Second, it exhibits an emissivity close to unity at the atmospheric transparency windows (e.g. 8-13 μm (dominant window), 16-25 μm, etc.) and zero emission outside these windows. This ensures that the panel doesn't strongly emit at wavelengths where the atmosphere is opaque, hence minimizing Patm. Third, the device is sealed from its environment to minimize convection that would otherwise contribute to an additional heat load, hence minimizing Pconv. Convection on top of the device is a detriment in this case since it operates below ambient temperature. In short, an ideal high-performance passive radiative cooler is an engineered structure capable of “self-cooling” below ambient temperatures, even when exposed to direct sunlight, and requires no power input or material phase change to achieve its cooling power.
Currently there are no commercially available passive radiative cooling technologies that meet the three conditions defining an ideal high-performance passive radiative cooler. Existing radiative cooling foils can be inexpensive, but are currently limited to operating in the absence of sunlight (i.e., mostly at nighttime). Current state of the art attempts to achieve daytime passive radiative cooling utilize emitter-over-reflector architectures that require complex spectrally-selective emitter materials that are too expensive to provide commercially viable alternatives to traditional powered cooling approaches. Moreover, there are no (i.e., zero) passive radiative cooling technologies, commercial or otherwise, that are easily scalable to provide dry cooling for large power plants disposed in hot or humid regions. That is, the challenge for dry cooling of power plants is to design photonic structures that can be easily fabricated and scaled up to very large areas (e.g. 1 km2) at low cost.
What is needed is a scalable high-performance passive (i.e., requiring no power/electricity input) radiative cooling system that can provide cost-effective dry cooling for power plants located in hot and humid climate zones or other regions experiencing curtailed water supplies where traditional dry-cooling remains impractical and/or where insufficient water is available to support the significant water consumption required by power plant wet cooling systems.
The present invention is directed to a low-cost, high-performance passive radiative cooling system in which a conduit structure causes a coolant (e.g., cooling water) to flow against a bottom surface of a metal sheet such that thermal energy (heat) is transferred from the coolant through the metal sheet to metamaterial nanostructures disposed on the sheet's top surface. The metamaterial nanostructures (i.e., subwavelength engineered structures with tailored optical properties) are arranged in an ultra-black metamaterial-based pattern on the top (first) surface of a metal sheet and configured to emit radiant energy at least in the primary atmospheric transparency window (i.e., having wavelengths in the range of 8 μm to 13 μm and/or in the range of 16 μm to 28 μm). To facilitate passive radiative cooling during both daytime and nighttime, a reflective layer is disposed over the metamaterial nanostructures that is configured to reflect incident solar radiation (i.e., to shield or shade the metal sheet such that the emitted radiant energy is predominantly converted thermal energy from the liquid coolant), where the reflective layer is also configured to transmit the emitted ATW radiant energy (i.e., such that the ATW radiant energy emitted from the metamaterial nanostructures passes through the reflective layer for transmission into cold near-space). With this arrangement, the passive radiative cooling system provides high-performance dry cooling that can be utilized by power plants in hot and humid climate zones and in regions experiencing curtailed water supplies, where traditional dry-cooling remains impractical, and/or where insufficient water is available to support the significant water consumption required by power plant wet cooling systems.
According to an aspect of the present invention, the three-layer (i.e., conduit-metal sheet/emitter-reflector) arrangement utilized by the cooling system facilitates dry cooling at significantly lower cost than is achievable any other existing conventional approach. The metal sheet serves both production and operating cost reducing purposes: first, it provides a potentially low-cost medium (e.g., when implemented using aluminum foil) for generating the required metamaterials-enhanced ultra-black pattern by facilitating the use of low-cost, high throughput fabrication processes (e.g., anodization and electroless plating); second, the metal sheet serves as a highly efficient thermal conductor of heat from the coolant to the metamaterials-enhanced ultra-black material, thus potentially reducing the total area occupied by the cooling system; and third, the metal sheet provides a reliable and durable moisture barrier that prevents the coolant from fouling the metamaterials-enhanced ultra-black material and/or reflective layer, which could impede emissions and/or radiative transfer. Next, mounting the reflective layer over the top surface of the metal sheet, an emitter-under-reflector arrangement is formed that also lowers production costs because this arrangement facilitates implementing the reflective layer using commercially available solar mirror films, thus avoiding the need for complex and expensive materials required by conventional emitter-over-reflector architectures. Finally, utilizing the bottom surface of the metal sheet to provide the upper wall of the conduit structure (i.e., such that the coolant contacts the bottom surface of the metal sheet as it passes through the conduit structure) simplifies and minimizes the material costs associated with the conduit structure, which further reduces overall production costs.
According to another aspect, high performance passive radiant cooling is achieved by way of metamaterial nanostructures that are arranged in an ultra-black metamaterial-based pattern such that the resulting ultra-black emitter is configured to emit ATW radiant energy with an emissivity close to unity, and by implementing the reflective layer using a material capable of reflecting at least 94% of incident solar radiation (i.e., solar radiation having a frequencies of 2 μm or less) while passing therethrough the emitted ATW radiant energy. In alternative embodiments, the ultra-black emitter is implemented using any of several metamaterial nanostructure types, including nanopores, or other needle-like, dendritic or porous textured surfaces, carbon nanotube forests, or other black films (e.g. black chrome, black silicon, black copper, nickel phosphorus (NiP) alloys). Because the reflective layer is disposed over the ultra-black emitter and reflects almost all incident solar radiation, the ultra-black emitter is shielded (shaded) from sunlight by the reflective layer during daylight hours, thus providing a passive radiative cooling system that exhibits superior passive radiative cooling power. Preliminary experimental results, based on estimates of net cooling power derived by solving the heat balance formula in Equation 1 (above) indicate low-cost passive radiative cooling system formed in accordance with the present invention provide net cooling powers approaching 75 W/m2 and 130 W/m2 during daytime and nighttime, respectively, and an early-stage prototype exhibited cooling of an aluminum substrate by 6° C. below ambient temperature in broad daylight, which is believed to be a record performance for daytime radiative cooling.
According to a presently preferred embodiment, the ultra-black emitter comprising an array of tapered nanopores disposed on the metal sheet, where each tapered nanopore is a pit-like cavity having an open upper end located at the top surface, a closed lower end, and a substantially conical-shaped side wall extending between the open upper end and the closed lower end. In one embodiment, the open upper end has a larger diameter than the closed lower end by way of increasing the applied voltage over time during anodization such that a diameter of the conic side wall decreases inside each tapered nanopore, and a reverse taper is produced by decreasing the applied voltage over time. The use of such tapered nanopores having a suitable size (e.g., having a nominal width in the range of 100 nm to 1 μm) facilitates the production of superior ultra-black materials capable of emitting ATW radiant energy with high emissivity because the tapered structures effectively have smoothly varying refractive indices (grated index medium) that prevent Fresnel reflections. In accordance with specific embodiments, the emitter layer of each passive radiative cooling panel includes both a base (first) metal material and a plated (second) metal layer that is disposed on the top surface of the first metal (base metal layer) such that a portion of the plated metal layer is disposed inside each of the tapered nanopores. In addition to impedance matching, such metal-coated tapered nanopores will also scatter light inside the ultra-black material, which significantly contributes to the emission of ATW radiant energy. In addition, the large imaginary part of the refractive index of the metal contributes to the attenuation of the light inside the material, producing low reflectance that will physically result in an extremely dark appearance of the surface. In an exemplary embodiment, the base metal layer is implemented using aluminum, and the plated (second) metal layer comprises one or more of nickel (Ni) copper (Cu) and gold (Ag). In a presently preferred embodiment, the metal-plated tapered nanopores are formed using a modified Anodic Aluminum Oxide (AAO) self-assembly template technique in which an aluminum sheet (metal sheet) is anodized in acid such that a porous alumina (aluminum oxide) layer forms over the aluminum sheet that includes self-formed, hexagonally packed arrays of nanopores, wherein formation of the alumina layer is controlled by way of varying the applied voltage in order to generate the desired taper. This AAO method provides a high-throughput, bottom-up, and low-cost fabrication method to fabricate subwavelength (e.g., sub-50 nm) and very high-aspect ratio (1:1000) tapered nanopores. Because passive radiative cooling inherently requires modules covering a large area (i.e., one or more square kilometers in large power plant applications), a main techno-economic challenge for developing a passive radiative cooling panel rests on the ability to cost-effectively mass-produce the panels. Next, a plated metal layer (e.g., Ni, Cu or Ag) is formed on the alumina (aluminum oxide) layer by way of a suitable plating process (e.g., electroless plating) such that the plating metal forms on the surfaces inside the tapered nanopores. In addition to impedance matching, the nickel/copper/gold metal-plating serves to scatter light inside the tapered nanopores, which significantly contributes to the emission of ATW radiant energy. In addition, the large imaginary part of the refractive index of the nickel/copper/gold metal-plating contributes to the attenuation of the light inside the tapered nanopores, producing low reflectance that will physically result in an extremely dark appearance of the surface. Therefore, the combination of aluminum-based tapered nanopores and nickel/copper/gold metal-plating facilitates the production of superior ultra-black emitters capable of generating ATW radiant energy with high emissivity. Moreover, by forming tapered nanopores formed using the novel modified AAO self-assembly template techniques described herein, and then electroless plating a second metal (e.g., Ni, Cu or Ag) onto the alumina, superior ultra-black materials are produced with high efficiency, and in a manner that facilitates low-cost mass production of passive radiative cooling systems using cost-effective roll-to-roll mass-production manufacturing techniques.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the upper reflective layer of each module comprises a distributed Bragg reflector including multiple sublayers collectively configured to reflect (i.e., exhibit a reflectance of 0.8 or greater) incident solar radiation having wavelengths in the range of 0 to 2 μm, and to transmit/pass therethrough (i.e., exhibit a reflectance of 0.2 or lower) ATW radiant energy, for example, having wavelengths in the range of 8 μm to 13 μm. In some embodiments, commercially available solar mirror films currently used in concentrating solar power (CSP) collectors (e.g., solar films produced by 3M Corporation of St. Paul, Minn. USA, or by ReflecTech, Inc. of Arvada, Colo. USA) exhibit spectral characteristics that are close enough to the desired spectrum, and may be cost-effectively secured to the top surface of the emitter layer, e.g., by way of an optional intervening adhesive layer. In other embodiments that require a reflective layer that selectively transmits only ATW portions of the broadband radiant energy, custom engineered reflective layers may be required.
According to a presently preferred embodiment of the present invention, the conduit structure includes including a lower wall and a raised peripheral wall configured to collectively form a box-like frame having an open top that is covered (sealed) by the metal plate when the conduit structure is operably mounted onto the ultra-black emitter (i.e., such that the bottom surface of the metal plate, the upward facing surface of the lower wall, and the inward-facing surfaces of the peripheral wall surround/define a substantially enclosed region referred to herein as a “heat-exchange channel”). To facilitate the flow of coolant through the conduit structure, an inlet port is defined at one end of the box-like frame, and an outlet port is defined at the opposite end, whereby coolant enters the conduit structure through the inlet port, passes through the heat-exchange channel, and exits the conduit structure through the outlet port. Because the bottom surface of the metal plate forms the upper surface of the heat-exchange channel, the coolant necessarily flows against (i.e., contacts) the surface of the metal sheet as it passes through the heat-exchange channel, thereby facilitating heat transfer to the ultra-black emitter. Optional baffles are mounted on either the lower wall or the peripheral side walls of the box-like frame and are configured to direct the flow of coolant along narrow channel sections as it passes through the heat-exchange channel in order to enhance heat transfer to the ultra-black emitter. In alternative embodiments, low cost conduit structures are implemented using, for example, corrugated metal sheets.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the metamaterials-enhanced passive radiative cooling system utilizes modular units (modules) and an associated flow control system that are configured to facilitate scalable dry cooling for power plants (or other objects). Each module has a substantially identically shaped (e.g., square or rectangular) structure including an associated ultra-black emitter unit (i.e., metal sheet having a fixed size, such as 1 m2, with metamaterial nanostructures formed thereon as described above), a reflective layer portion (also mentioned above) sized and shaped to shield the emitter unit, and a conduit structure sized and shaped to fit substantially entirely under the emitter unit (i.e., such that the emitter unit is between coolant flowing through the conduit structure and the reflective layer). To facilitate series connection of multiple modules to form linearly arranged module row groups, each conduit structure includes an inlet port at one end and an outlet port at the opposite end that are positioned for easy connection (e.g., by way of intervening pipe sections) such that coolant exiting through the outlet port of one module enters the inlet port of an adjacent module in the same row group. In a practical embodiment, to facilitate dry cooling that can be economically scaled (selectively configured) to achieve a given target temperature drop of a given coolant flow volume, the flow control system utilizes one or more inflow pipes to supply heated coolant from the object to be cooled (e.g., a power plant) to one or more row groups of series-connected modules, one or more outflow pipes to return cooled coolant from the modules to the object to be cooled, and a pump operably coupled to one or both pipes and configured to generate fluid flow by applying an optimal pressure to bias (flow) the coolant through the modules at a desired rate. That is, the passive radiative cooling system is easily scalable to achieve a target temperature drop by way of adjusting the number of series-connected modules in each row group through which coolant must sequentially flow between the inflow and outflow pipes (i.e., because each module provides a unit amount of heat dissipation, the total heat dissipation, and hence temperature drop, of the coolant flowing from the inflow pipe to the outflow pipe is proportional to the number of modules the coolant passes through in each given row group). In addition, the passive radiative cooling system is scalable to achieve this target temperature drop for a given flow volume by connecting a sufficient number of row groups in parallel between the inflow and outflow pipes. Accordingly, the present invention provides a high-performance passive radiative cooling system that is scalable to provide cost-effective dry cooling for power plants of any size, even in hot and humid climate zones, where traditional dry-cooling remains impractical, and in regions experiencing curtailed water supplies, where insufficient water is available to support power plant wet cooling systems.
According to yet another embodiment of the present invention, a method for dry cooling an object includes circulating a coolant between the object and a heat-exchange channel formed such that the coolant flows against the bottom surface of a metal sheet before returning to the object, and dissipating thermal energy from the coolant by way of metamaterial nanostructures disposed in an ultra-black metamaterial-based pattern on a top surface of the metal sheet, where the metamaterial nanostructures are configured to convert the thermal energy into radiant energy having wavelengths in one or more atmospheric transparency windows and then transmitted through a solar radiation reflective layer into cold near-space. By converting thermal energy from the coolant into atmospheric transparency window radiant energy that is then transmitted through a reflective layer, the present invention provides a high-performance passive radiative cooling system capable of providing dry cooling for power plants in hot and humid climate zones, where traditional dry-cooling remains impractical, and in regions experiencing curtailed water supplies, where insufficient water is available to support power plant wet cooling systems.
These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings, where:
The present invention relates to an improvement in passive reflective cooling. The following description is presented to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention as provided in the context of a particular application and its requirements. As used herein, directional terms such as “upper”, “upward-facing”, “lower”, “downward-facing”, “top”, and “bottom”, are intended to provide relative positions for purposes of description, and are not necessarily intended to designate an absolute frame of reference. Various modifications to the preferred embodiment will be apparent to those with skill in the art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments. Therefore, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments shown and described, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and novel features herein disclosed.
Referring to the upper portion of
In one embodiment the primary components of system 300 are implemented using modularized units referred to herein as modules 200. In this case, multiple modules are typically connected in parallel and/or series in the manner described below to provide scalability for achieving a target temperature drop for a given coolant volume flow rate. In a possible alternative embodiment, a single custom-built structure including features similar to those provided herein may be used in place of multiple modules 200.
Referring to the upper portion of
In addition to the primary components discussed above, system 300 also includes a flow control system 305 that functions to circulate a given volume of a coolant 301 at a given flow rate between an object to be cooled (e.g., a power plant, not shown) and the primary components discussed above, whereby the coolant's temperature is decreased by a target temperature amount (target temperature drop) as it passes through the primary components. In the exemplary embodiment depicted in
According to alternative embodiments, ultra-black emitter 110 is implemented using any of several metamaterial nanostructure types. In the generalized embodiment shown in
Referring again to
Referring to the central portion of
As mentioned above, in a presently preferred embodiment, the passive radiative cooling system of the present invention is implemented using multiple modular units (modules) that are connectable in series to achieve a target coolant temperature drop for a given coolant volume and flow rate.
Although the present invention has been described with respect to certain specific embodiments, it will be clear to those skilled in the art that the inventive features of the present invention are applicable to other embodiments as well, all of which are intended to fall within the scope of the present invention. For example, other types of conduit structures can be used in place of the box-like conduit structures described above to further minimize production costs.
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