About this Research Topic
The share of renewable energy sources in the overall production of electricity has witnessed exponential growth over the past years. As the cost of renewables is decreasing, wide implementation is dependent on sustainable storage alternatives. Although renewable sources are cleaner and sustainable, energy production heavily depends on weather conditions and is of an intermittent nature. This introduces the need for high capacitive techniques of energy storage to better manage the supply and demand. The need for sustainable energy carriers arises from the energy storage necessity and imbalance between consumption and production of energy. Energy carriers can be used for diverse applications ranging from energy storage, power generation and transportation.
There is a need for research to focus on the production, conversion and utilization of sustainable energy carriers having high energy density, suitable storage characteristics, easy handling experiences and less transportation losses. This Research Topic seeks solutions in the following areas: The production of sustainable energy carriers using renewable energy sources, the effective conversion of sustainable energy carriers into final product such as electricity, heating, cooling etc, the development of necessary infrastructure for utilization of sustainable energy carriers in an efficient way and proposing alternative scenarios for use of sustainable energy carriers for diversification of product portfolio.
This Research Topic will include both computational modelling and experimentation of sustainable energy carriers. We welcome submissions of Mini Review, Original Research, and Review articles in themes including, but not limited to:
• Process modelling for chemical reactions occurring during production of the energy carriers.
• Process and Energy Integration of sustainable energy carriers in the final use such as hydrogen network, transportation, power network, multigeneration systems.
• Production, conversion and utilization of energy carriers (e.g. hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, ethanol, dimethyl ether, formic acid, etc.) using renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and biomass.
• Investigation of production and effective conversion pathways (e.g. photoelectrochemical, thermochemical, electrochemical, photocatalysis, electrolysis, gasification/pyrolysis) into final product.
• Utilization of energy carriers in alternative and sustainable scenarios such as power generation, transportation, energy storage, agriculture, etc.
• Development of necessary infrastructure for utilization of sustainable energy carriers in an efficient way
Keywords: energy carriers, process modelling, process integration, conversion pathways, computational modelling
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
