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Global clean energy solutions provider expands in US with Houston-area location

The move expands Sineng Electric's presence in the U.S. clean energy sector. Photo courtesy of Sineng

Solar and energy storage solutions company Sineng Electric has expanded its U.S operations by officially opening its North America Service Center in Katy, Texas. The move is meant to help expand its presence in the U.S. clean energy sector.

The Fulshear facility will function as a “one-stop service hub” that will encompass office space, a technical support center, and warehouse. The space will also have opportunities for collaborative project planning, operations and maintenance (O&M) training, and real-time technical support.

"With its abundant solar resources, robust energy infrastructure, and spirit of innovation, Texas - particularly the Houston area - is poised to lead America's renewable energy revolution,” Fulshear Mayor Don McCoy says in a news release. “We enthusiastically welcome Sineng Electric to our vibrant community, confident in their ability to help shape a future that is brighter, greener, and full of possibilities.”

At the inauguration ceremony event, Sineng's technical team also introduced its solar and energy storage solutions, which included the 400kW string PCS. The400kW string PCS is tasked to help reduce initial costs while enhancing operational simplicity, and overall efficiency.

"As the United States accelerates its shift towards renewable energy to meet ambitious net-zero targets, the demand for advanced solar and energy storage solutions is surging," adds Viktor Duan, vice chairman and co-founder of Sineng Electric. "In response, Sineng has strategically established its new service center to provide on-the-ground expertise, responsive local customer service, and cutting-edge solutions to scale up the adoption of sustainable energy across the country."

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A View From HETI

Ahmad Elgazzar, Haotian Wang and Shaoyun Hao were members of a Rice University team that recently published findings on how acid bubbling can improve CO2 reduction systems. Photo courtesy Rice.

In a new study published in the journal Science, a team of Rice University researchers shared findings on how acid bubbles can improve the stability of electrochemical devices that convert carbon dioxide into useful fuels and chemicals.

The team led by Rice associate professor Hoatian Wang addressed an issue in the performance and stability of CO2 reduction systems. The gas flow channels in the systems often clog due to salt buildup, reducing efficiency and causing the devices to fail prematurely after about 80 hours of operation.

“Salt precipitation blocks CO2 transport and floods the gas diffusion electrode, which leads to performance failure,” Wang said in a news release. “This typically happens within a few hundred hours, which is far from commercial viability.”

By using an acid-humidified CO2 technique, the team was able to extend the operational life of a CO2 reduction system more than 50-fold, demonstrating more than 4,500 hours of stable operation in a scaled-up reactor.

The Rice team made a simple swap with a significant impact. Instead of using water to humidify the CO2 gas input into the reactor, the team bubbled the gas through an acid solution such as hydrochloric, formic or acetic acid. This process made more soluble salt formations that did not crystallize or block the channels.

The process has major implications for an emerging green technology known as electrochemical CO2 reduction, or CO2RR, that transforms climate-warming CO2 into products like carbon monoxide, ethylene, or alcohols. The products can be further refined into fuels or feedstocks.

“Using the traditional method of water-humidified CO2 could lead to salt formation in the cathode gas flow channels,” Shaoyun Hao, postdoctoral research associate in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice and co-first author, explained in the news release. “We hypothesized — and confirmed — that acid vapor could dissolve the salt and convert the low solubility KHCO3 into salt with higher solubility, thus shifting the solubility balance just enough to avoid clogging without affecting catalyst performance.”

The Rice team believes the work can lead to more scalable CO2 electrolyzers, which is vital if the technology is to be deployed at industrial scales as part of carbon capture and utilization strategies. Since the approach itself is relatively simple, it could lead to a more cost-effective and efficient solution. It also worked well with multiple catalyst types, including zinc oxide, copper oxide and bismuth oxide, which are allo used to target different CO2RR products.

“Our method addresses a long-standing obstacle with a low-cost, easily implementable solution,” Ahmad Elgazzar, co-first author and graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice, added in the release. “It’s a step toward making carbon utilization technologies more commercially viable and more sustainable.”

A team led by Wang and in collaboration with researchers from the University of Houston also shared findings on salt precipitation buildup and CO2RR in a recent edition of the journal Nature Energy. Read more here.

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