Fossil fuels (i.e., petroleum, natural gas and coal), which meet most of the world’s energy demand today, are being depleted fast. Also, their combustion products are causing the global problems, such as the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, acid rains and pollution, which are posing great danger for our environment and eventually for the life in our planet. Many engineers and scientists agree that the solution to these global problems would be to replace the existing fossil fuel system by the hydrogen energy system. Hydrogen is a very efficient and clean fuel. Its combustion will produce no greenhouse gases, no ozone layer depleting chemicals, little or no acid rain ingredients and pollution. Hydrogen, produced from renewable energy (e.g., solar) sources, would result in a permanent energy system, which we would never have to change.

However, there are other energy systems proposed for the post-petroleum era, such as a synthetic fossil fuel system. In this system, synthetic gasoline and synthetic natural gas will be produced using abundant deposits of coal. In a way, this will ensure the continuation of the present fossil fuel system.

The two possible energy systems for the post-fossil fuel era (i.e., the solar-hydrogen energy system and the synthetic fossil fuel system) are compared with the present fossil fuel system by taking into consideration production costs, environmental damages and utilization efficiencies. The results indicate that the solar-hydrogen energy system is the best energy system to ascertain a sustainable future, and it should replace the fossil fuel system before the end of the 21st century.

A model of a solar-wind hydrogen energy system was applied to the Ceara state—Brazil and the prospects for reducing emissions of fossil fuels pollutants in such federal state were studied. This long-term study simulates three scenarios of fast, slow and no introduction of hydrogen in the energy balance of the Ceara state. Not including nitrogen oxides, if fuel burning continues, results indicate that hydrogen energy eventually will reduce to zero all emissions of fossil fuels pollutants in the Ceara state by the year 2060 in both scenarios of hydrogen introduction.

Ozone and low temperatures influence on isolation of electrical materials are considered.

Combination of low temperature food storage with the electron-ion technology (including ozone) gives an ability to solve the problems of products spoilage minimization and reduction of energy consumption. Real objects have storage temperatures from -24°C till +24°С. Ozone is used at the same.

Power, electrical and informational communication lines were used. The object of the research was samples of electrical products. Usually they are used in low temperature storage chambers. Combined effect of low temperatures, ozone different densities, mechanical loading on isolation of communicational lines are analyzed.

Most samples after exposure of low temperatures and high ozone densities stand the test. That’s why it is possible to use them in practice. Only KG (H07RN-F) didn’t pass the test. The isolation of several samples, such as VVG (NYY-O), VVGng (NYY-J), PWC (H05VV-F) and PW-3, cracked at cooling temperatures -18°С and -24°С. In real use these samples are not so loaded. So, it can be considered, that in conditions of long use, electrical materials are usable (low temperatures and ozone densities till 40 g/m³ are allowed). The results allow making a conclusion that most modern industrial low temperature storage chambers let use electron-ion technologies.

In this work, experimental studies of the process of obtaining hydrogen in a plasma discharge initiated in a liquid stream of different chemical composition were carried out. A two-phase flow was created when a liquid medium under high pressure passed through a hydrodynamic irradiator. A supersonic two-phase vapor-liquid flow under reduced pressure is formed in the fluid due to the pressure drop and decrease in the enthalpy of the flow. The plasma discharge was initiated by an external power source, which creates an electric field inside the reaction chamber. Several shapes and sizes of reaction chambers with different electrode arrangements were tested.

Pure water as well as alcohols, esters, and their mixtures with water were used as starting liquids. As a result of experimental studies, it was shown that a low-temperature plasma initiated under the conditions of a flow of a liquid-phase medium in the discharge gap between the electrodes can effectively decompose hydrogen-containing molecules of organic compounds in a liquid to form gaseous products with a significant proportion of hydrogen. It is shown that the highest efficiency of the process is when using mixtures of alcohols and water as a raw material. This opens the possibility of using this process in the processing of crude ethanol and other products of the fermentation of cheap plant materials. The decomposition of organic compounds in plasma also produces insignificant amounts of carbon nanoparticles and oxide nanoparticles of discharge electrode materials.

Despite such technical advantages as high energy conversion efficiency, low noise, autonomy, etc., hydrogen fuel cells have not yet been widely used due to insufficiently high economic competitiveness. It is known that a significant fraction of the hydrogen fuel cell cost is the cost of the electrode materials and electrodes. In this regard, the paper studies the electrode materials and electrodes of hydrogen fuel cell. The performance of porous electrochemical electrodes is determined by electrode activity, substance transfer efficiency, and charge transfer efficiency. Since these factors act, as a rule, in the opposite direction, the task of selecting the component composition of the electrode often comes down to obtaining optimization dependencies. It is important to note that transport losses in a running fuel cell are usually dominant. In connection with this, our work focuses on the structure and transport characteristics.

It is believed that the determining factors of the diffusion component of the functioning of the fuel cell are the characteristics of the porous structure of the electrode affecting the conditions of mass exchange and the processes of water condensation. A significant phenomenon is the inhomogeneity of the ionic resistance associated with inhomogeneities of humidity and temperature, since the ionic resistance of proton-conducting component depends on humidity and temperature.

In order to control the porous structure and transport properties, we used the technique of introducing into the electrode material a highly porous functional additive with a large proportion of transport pores and creating the island structure of the proton-conducting polymer Nafion. Two materials were investigated as functional additives: carbon nanofibers and thermally expanded graphite. The fabricated electrode materials and membrane-electrode assemblies were investigated by electron microscopy, voltammetry, cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy.

The result is the dependences connecting the composition of the electrode with its porosity, specific ion and electronic resistance, specific surface area of platinum. The study gives the results of diffusion resistance to mass transport depending on the composition. We have developed the technology of electrode material with increased efficiency of mass and charge transport. The results allow us to predict the electrical characteristics of the cathode, to produce electrodes with desired properties.

Shortcomings of electric power networks compared with DC networks in terms of stability, controllability, reliability and redundancy are noted. The article reveals the necessity of transition from digitalization in the form of automated process control systems to smart grids, and subsequently to multi-agent DC networks with a high degree of redundancy. In case of damage of one of the elements, these networks allow us to save the power supply to consumers and automatically restore the operation of the damaged element due to proven algorithms for diagnosing and restoring the original mode.

Moreover, the article deals with application of distributed generation consisting of traditional and renewable energy sources, as well as accumulators and static converters. Characteristics of the above mentioned elements are given for simulating the modes in order to select the structure and control algorithms that provide an increased degree of reliability and invulnerability of power supply. Substitution schemes and analytical expressions of renewable energy sources and energy storage devices are proposed and described for mathematical modeling of regimes. The most promising solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) are considered. The commercialization of small and distributed energy has been constrained by the high unit cost of SOFC so far; however, their advantages are high efficiency and minimum environmental emission of flue gases. Prospects of introducing SOFC in the energy production is not obvious, however, in micro- and small-scale power generation, their commercialization abroad is a growing pace, in spite of the above limitations. So for 10 years from 2007 to 2016, their sales around the world increased 13 times with sales up to 480 MW. Russia has a huge domestic market for the introduction of SOFC which is estimated of 114 GW by 2035 with needs up to 44 million of micro capacities, hundreds of thousands of low power (up to 200 kW) and tens of thousands of more power units (over 2 MW). This volume of the domestic market allows transferring domestic developments in the field of industrial development and commercialization in the near future.

The paper presents the review of works devoted to the effects of weak (with induction not exceeding 0.3 T) pulsed and a constant magnetic fields on the dielectric characteristics of hydrogen-containing ferroelectric crystals. By using the example of nominally pure triglycine sulfate and potassium dihydrophosphate, such weak magnetic fields were shown to cause a significant increase in the dielectric constant, coercive field, and a noticeable shift in the temperature of the ferroelectric phase transition. The interest shown in such studies is that the effects considered cannot be explained from the point of view of classical thermodynamics. For a long time, there was an opinion that magnetic fields with induction of less than 1 T in principle cannot affect the physical properties of diamagnetic materials in any way. However, experiments with numerous diamagnetic treated with weak magnetic fields showed the fallacy of such an opinion. The ferroelectric crystals referred to in the proposed work are also diamagnetic. Therefore, the apparatus of classical thermodynamics is not suitable for explaining the effect on the processing properties of weak magnetic fields. The effects of exposure are explained by the participation of protons of hydrogen bonds, which stabilize defective complexes, in electronic transitions responsible for the decay of these complexes and/or detachment of domain walls from them. An indirect confirmation of this explanation is the absence of the effect of magnetic fields (at least in the induction range 0.02-0.30 T) on single-crystal samples of barium titanate BaTiO3, an octahedral-type ferroelectric that has no hydrogen bonds in its structure.

Information about the Conference

Date: 18^th June 2019 – 19 ^th June 2019 Location: Berlin – Germany

From 23 to 28 June, 2019 / St. Petersburg, Russia

23.04.2019