
Gianluca PasiniUniversity of Pisa | UNIPI · DESTEC
Gianluca Pasini
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43
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Introduction
Publications
Publications (43)
Electro-fuels (E-fuels) represent a potential solution for decarbonizing the maritime sector, including pleasure vessels. Due to their large energy requirements, direct electrification is not currently feasible. E-fuels, such as synthetic diesel, methanol, ammonia, methane and hydrogen, can be used in existing internal combustion engines or fuel ce...
This paper’s research question is to evaluate the potential impact of large numbers of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) on the future electric grid, and whether the flexibility of BEV charging can induce enough system benefits to remunerate BEV users for the change in their recharging pattern. The considered scenario refers to the Italian situation...
The production of oxygenated bio-additives for traditional fuels represents a key challenge due to their depletion in the near-future and their positive contribution to the reduction in environmental pollution. The present study considers the synthesis of 1-hexanol/hexyl hexanoate mixtures, two oxygenated Diesel bio-additives produced through the h...
The production of oxygenated bio-additives for traditional fuels represents a key challenge due to the depletion of fossil fuels in the next future and their contribution to environmental pollu-tion. In this context, the present study considers the synthesis of different mixtures of 1-hexanol/hexyl hexanoate produced through the catalytic hydrogena...
The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is driving many actions to decarbonize the most impactful sectors. Among these, the energy sector accounts for almost one third of emissions. Increasing the penetration of renewable energy in the energy mix could easily reduce the emissions of this sector. Theoretically, the target to aim for would be 100...
Road transport is one of the most energy-consuming and greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting sectors. Progressive decarbonisation of electricity generation could support the ambitious target of road vehicle climate neutrality in two different ways: direct electrification with onboard electrochemical storage or a change of energy vector with e-fuels. The mo...
The transition from fossil resources to renewable ones represents a pressing need. The acidogenic fermentation of biomass-derived ethanol to carboxylic acids represents a novel and smart possibility, opening the way for the production of further value-added bio-products through cascade chemical approaches. In this work, the hydrogenation of commerc...
Liquefied natural gas is recently playing an important role in the heavy-duty vehicle and marine fuel market due to the low ambient impact, easy onboard storage, and low commercial prices. Biomethane from biogas upgrading can integrate the LNG market by providing the added value of an almost zero carbon footprint fuel.
The production rate of biomet...
Acoustic pyrometry is an interesting technique that may find several useful applications in turbomachinery. As the speed of sound is directly related a medium temperature, this measurement technique estimates the temperature of a gas by considering the time of flight of an acoustic wave moving through it. If only an acoustic emitter-receiver couple...
Biomethane liquefaction may help decarbonization in heavy transportation and other hard-to-abate sectors. Small-scale liquefaction plants (<10 ton/day) are suitable for small biogas plants located near farms and other agricultural activities. “Internal refrigerant” refrigeration cycles (e.g., Kapitza cycle) are often proposed for small-scale natura...
In recent years, biofuels have been attracting more attention, especially in Europe, due to the new regulations concerning the improvement of renewables in fuel composition.
The acid-catalysed alcoholysis reaction of the cellulosic fraction of raw and pre-treated lignocellulosic biomasses, using n-Butanol (n-BuOH) and diluted inorganic acid as homo...
The integration of electricity and gas systems is a key priority for the energy transition. Alongside electricity, low-carbon energy vectors, such as Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) or hydrogen, are required in future energy systems. Hence, regasification systems, often located nearby port areas, will be strategic assets promoting environmental, social...
Aiming for the better environmental and economic performance of traditional engines, waste heat recovery (WHR) technologies are actively studied to find their most beneficial applications. In this work, the inverted Brayton cycle (IBC) is investigated as a potential WHR solution for liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuelled transport truck. LNG being one...
Recent legislation concerning air pollutant emissions from ships (Tier III) has considerably decreased NOx emission limits for recreational ships with less than 500 gross tonnages and greater than 24 m load line length (LLL), the so-called “large yachts”. For these yachts, which adopt multiple Diesel engines with maximum power ranging from 800 to 2...
In the framework of a scenario with an always increasing share of generation from variable renewable sources, the need for systems able to store energy or to convert the excess generation into useful goods is becoming of paramount importance. While several projects and pilot plants deal with direct energy storage or with the conversion of the exces...
The present investigation represents a concrete example of complete valorization of Eucalyptus nitens biomass, in the framework of the circular economy. Autohydrolyzed-delignified Eucalyptus nitens was employed as a cheap cellulose-rich feedstock in the direct alcoholysis to n-butyl levulinate, adopting n-butanol as green reagent/reaction medium, v...
The paper proposes an innovative scheme exploiting oxygen liquefaction as a means for storing excess electricity generation from renewable sources. Liquid oxygen is then used in an oxy-combustion process with LNG to generate electricity when renewable energy generation is below the demand. An equivalent round trip efficiency is defined to make it p...
To reduce the pollutant emissions in the naval sector, the use of alternative fuels and new power generator systems are both promising solutions. In this study, the feasibility of replacing a pleasure boat Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) with a hybrid solution is studied from the economic and technical points of view. Several power generation technologi...
In the recent years the progressive decrease in fossil petroleum resources and gradual deprivation of the environment have attracted increasing interest towards the use of biomass as renewable carbon source for the production of chemicals and transportation fuels. In particular, lignocellulosic biomass represents an abundant and inexpensive renewab...
Externally fired gas turbines represent one of the investigated solutions for the electrical production starting from heat at relatively high temperatures, such as from biomass combustion or high concentration solar power. This solution is particularly attractive for small and micro-scale plants, because they do not require many auxiliary component...
The gradual reduction of subsidies for electricity production from biogas and the raising interest of bio-methane as an integration to natural gas market force the biogas plant owners to choose alternative solutions for biogas exploitation.
In this study, two solutions for biomethane distribution have been compared: biomethane liquefaction and gri...
Recent regulatory initiatives regarding ships emissions raised the interest of maritime operators on cleaner fuels. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) with Annex VI of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) set strict limits on SO x , NO x and CO 2 emissions. Many studies have been carried out to...
Small scale power plants require component cost reduction to remain competitive in the energy market. Due to this scenario, the development of expander devices is usually derived from the technology of volumetric compressors, achieving the experimental analysis as a mandatory step to assess the techno-economic feasibility of a prototype. This work...
Externally fired gas turbines represent one of the investigated solutions for the electrical production starting from heat at relatively high temperatures, such as from biomass combustion or high concentration solar power. This solution is particularly attractive for small and micro-scale plants, because they do not require many auxiliary component...
Since the beginning of this century, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) has been attracting more and more attention as a cleaner energy alternative to other fossil fuels, mainly due to the possibility to transport it over longer distances than natural gas in pipelines and lower environmental impact than other liquid fuels. It is expected that this trend i...
The increasing penetration of renewable energy sources in the electricity generation scenario forces to face new challenges to achieve an effective management of the power system both in technical and economic terms. Traditional energy storage solutions, like electrochemical cells and pumped hydro energy storage appear critical in terms of economic...
The revenues of a grid-connected photovoltaic plant are strongly related to the local climatic conditions. In addition, since self-consumed electricity is much more valuable than that traded with the main power grid, also consumption profile plays a key role in the profitability of a PV system. Self-consumption to total PV production ratio depends...
In this paper, a comparison of two different small bio-LNG plants for upgrading and liquefaction have been conducted. In the first configuration liquefaction of the biomethane occurred after the upgrading with conventional processes; in the second configuration, cryogenic upgrading occurred within the liquefaction process, removing CO2 in solid sta...
One of the key strategies to reduce fuel consumption and emissions is given by engine downsizing, together with turbocharging. Under this aspect, the possibility to couple an electric drive to the turbocharger to recover the residual energy of the exhaust gases is becoming more and more attractive. However, additional energy coming from an electric...
The current increase in the deployment of new renewable electricity generation systems is creating new challenges in balancing electric grids. Solutions including energy storage at small and large scales are becoming of paramount importance to guarantee and secure a stable supply of electricity. This paper presents a study about a hybrid solution i...
At present, the application of turbocharging in compression ignition (CI) engines represents almost all of the applications, especially for transportation where fuel efficiency and low emissions are the main targets. Following this approach, the possibility to couple an electric drive to the turbocharger (electric turbo compound, ETC) to recover th...
The current increase in the deployment of new renewable electricity generation systems is making energy storage more and more important at small and large scales in order to guarantee and secure supply of electricity. An ideal energy storage technology would have a high power rating, a large storage capacity, high efficiency, low costs and no geogr...
In a medium term scenario Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) downsizing and hybrid powertrain will represent the actual trend in vehicle technology to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emission. Concerning downsizing concept, to maintain a reasonable power level in small engines, the application of turbocharging is mandatory both for spark ignition (SI...
To downsize a spark ignited (SI) internal combustion engine (ICE), keeping suitable power levels, the application of turbocharging is mandatory. The possibility to couple an electric drive to the turbocharger (electric turbo compound, ETC) can be considered, as demonstrated by a number of studies and the current application in the F1 Championship,...