Operating experiences with an advanced fabric energy storage system in Australia

Despite their proven track record in the cold climate countries of northern Europe, there are no reports in the research literature of experiences using advanced fabric energy storage (FES) systems in countries where cooling rather than heating is the main priority. This paper reports some of the experiences with the first known advanced FES system in Australia made over the first full calendar .year of operation. It is located in a three storey building on a university campus in Victoria and has been in operation since mid-2002. Temperature, energy use and operational mode data were recorded during 2003. Airflow measurements through the FES have been made in five areas of the building. On-going operating problems still exist with the system and this has prevented a conclusive evaluation of its suitability for the southern Australian climate.

Supplementing cold plasma with heat enables doping and nano-structuring of metal oxides

Nitrogen doped SnO2 polycrystalline nanostructures were produced from commercial SnO powders in a new system that combines a low-temperature plasma with heating. The method has the potential to improve the initial efficiency and the cycling performance of SnO2 anodes in Li-ion batteries. With this system, the temperature of the SnO to SnO2 conversion was lowered from 430 to 320 °C, up to 5 at% of doped nitrogen was detected and a nano-scale polycrystalline structure was observed in the product. Combining heat and low-pressure plasma is a promising approach for the production and treatment of enhanced energy storage materials.