United States. A research team from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) developed a coating for steam condensers used in generating steam cycles with fossil fuels.
According to the journal Nature Communications, this coating is made with diamond-like fluorinated carbon (F-DLC) and could increase overall progress performance by 2%.
In addition, according to a statement from UIUC's Grainger College of Engineering, adding this to the steam cycle for fossil fuel power generation could help achieve 460 million tons less carbon dioxide released, and up to 2 trillion tons of water used in the process could be saved.
In the report, the researchers explain how the F-DLC coating can improve heat transfer, as the material is hydrophobic.
Unlike many clean metals and their oxides, water does not form a thin film that coats the surface, but forms on the surface of the F-DLC.
This puts the steam in direct contact with the condenser and allows the heat to be transferred directly. With this, heat transfer properties are improved by a factor of 20, with an overall process increase of 2%.
"The reality is that fossil fuels won't disappear for at least 100 years. A lot of CO2 will be emitted before we get to a point where we can rely on renewables," said Professor and project leader Nenad Miljkovic.
"If our F-DLC coating were adopted globally, it would markedly reduce carbon emissions and water use for existing electrical infrastructure," Miljkovic said.
The coated metals reportedly maintained hydrophobic properties after being exposed to vapor condenser conditions for 1,095 days, which is the longest test reported in the literature.
The researchers also found that the coated metals maintained their hydrophobic properties after an abrasion test of 5,000 scratches.
"It's amazing that we can achieve this with F-DLC, something that only uses carbon, fluorene and a little bit of silicon. And it can coat virtually any common metal, including copper, bronze, aluminum and titanium," said postdoctoral research associate and lead author Muhammad Hoque.
According to the release, the research team is now collaborating with UIUC's Abbott Power Plant to further study performance under industrial conditions for six months.
"If all goes well, we hope to show everyone that this is an effective and economically viable solution," Miljkovic added.
"We want our solution to be adopted because, although the development of renewable energy should absolutely be a priority, it is still worth continuing to improve what we have now," he said.
