Ricardo Silva

• PhD in Applied Physics
• Senior Scientist at CIIAE - Energy Storage

Energy storage with Phase Change Materials (PCM) for steam generation for industrial processes

Energy systems need to decarbonize rapidly whilst satisfying heating and cooling needs. In Switzerland, residential cooling has so far only a small impact on the national energy demand, but climate change and a larger uptake of cooling devices are expected to lead to future increases. This requires novel approaches for sustainable cooling solutions...

Climatic chambers are of great importance in research and development to conduct tests of components in closed environmentally controlled conditions. The growing demand from the industry to fulfil stricter international standards creates the necessity to ensure that the thermofluidic behavior of climatic chambers guarantees high-quality consistency...

This paper presents the development of a novel sustainable green roof for car parks with an integrated solar tracking photovoltaic system. The emphasis in this work is placed on the study of the interaction between the photovoltaic panels, solar tracker, and green roof systems. A solar tracker design is developed based on multiple criteria such as...

A 3D steady-state computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a climatic chamber was developed using the commercial package Ansys Fluent, which uses the finite volume method (FVM) to integrate Navier-Stokes equations. A hybrid structured/unstructured mesh comprising of 4.6E6 elements was used, and the k-W shear stress tensor (SST) turbulence model...

Concentrador solar multi-modo El objeto de la invención es un captador solar constituido por un concentrador cilindroparabólico (CCP) aislado térmicamente (4), una cubierta de vidrio en su plano de apertura (1), un absorbedor tubular situado en su foco por el que circula un fluido caloportador (3), con o sin encapsulamiento de vidrio (2), y un mec...

Despite its huge potential for increasing sustainability, the use of solar energy in industry is still scarce. Many industrial thermal demands range from 120 to 250 °C, which are difficult to supply using solar energy because of the lack of specific solar thermal conversion devices. Parabolic-trough collectors (PTCs) suitable for these applications...

A comprehensive analysis of data from different networks of weather stations of Andalucía (Southern Spain) and standard climatic data sources has been carried out. A special attention has been paid in characterizing the different sources of uncertainty to be taken into account in input solar radiation data used for modelling of solar thermal system...

This work presents an overview of the potential use of solar energy systems for agro-industrial processes in Southern Spain, with a more specific interest in the province of Almería, a location with high levels of radiation where the existence of a productive model based on intensive agricultural exploitations has resulted in an ongoing process of...

Recent international and national reports establish conclusively that the heat demands from industrial processes in locations with high levels of insulation, such as Andalusia (Spain), are one of the sectors with the greatest potential for development and implementation of solar concentration technologies. This class of applications, characterized...

In the present work the use of a parabolic trough solar plant to generate process heat steam for a food processing application is studied. The food processing industry, devoted to vegetables preservation by thermal treatment and canning, is located in the Southern Spain region and demands saturated steam at 7 bar with an total annual consumption of...