international journal of renewable energy development int. journal of renewable energy development 1 (3) 2012: 99-105 p a g e | 99 © ijred – issn : 2252-4940 contents list available at ijred website, issn : 2252-4940 int. journal of renewable energy development (ijred) journal homepage: www.ijred.com the energy processing by power electronics and its impact on power quality j. e. rocha and w. d. c. sanchez * department of electrical engineering, federal university of technology paraná, brazil article history: received sep 19, 2012 received in revised form sep 24, 2012 accepted sep 30, 2012 available online abstract: this paper discusses the electrical architectures adopted in wind turbines and its impact on the harmonic flux at the connected electric network. the integration of wind electric generators with the power grid needs energy processing by power electronics. it shows that different types of wind turbine generator systems use different types of electronic converters. this work provides a discussion on harmonic distortion taking place on the generator side, as well as in the power grid side. keywords: grid connection, harmonic distortion, power electronics and converters, wind energy conversion systems, wind power, wind technology, wind turbines * corresponding author: email:walterdcsan@terra.com.br 1. introduction many improvements and innovations have been made since the wind turbines began to become important as an alternative methods of generating electricity from the 1980s. however, the basic electrical architectures are still present. an important innovation that has emerged in recent years was the direct drive and the use of generators with permanent magnets. direct drive is a transmission concept for wind turbines in which there is no gearbox, no speed multiplier. durability of these gearboxes has been a serious problem for a long time. conventional technologies such as synchronous generator, asynchronous generator and doubly-fed induction generator are commonly used. each of these technologies requires a specific electrical connection to the grid in order to process energy. controlling power flow into the utility grid is required to ensure compatibility operation. the grid interface is provided through the use of electronic power converters to control the energy and adapt it to the conditions required by the electrical system. even the induction generators which are connected directly to power grid need an electronic converter to start the connection process to the utility grid. in this case, it’s used a soft-starter converter in which the output voltage rises smoothly and a successful startup occurs. using power electronic in the various electrical architectures can increase performance and reduces the size and cost of the system. however, electronic converter may cause a degradation of power quality. the aim of this work is to discuss circuit topologies adopted in wind turbines and its impact on the harmonic flux at the grid side converter and at the machine side. the paper also discusses how to mitigate harmonic distortions in the point of connection to the grid in order to achieve regulatory goals. 2. harmonics several static converter topologies are applied to wind energy processing solutions. they are used to the regulation of power flow too. all power electronic converters generate harmonic currents, which will be injected into the utility grid, causing distortion of the utility voltage waveform. interestingly enough, the technology that allows for more efficient control of electrical energy, switch-mode power conversion technology, is also responsible for a negative impact on power quality. regulatory standards for utility system are critical to maintaining the quality of ac power distribution citation: rocha je and sanchez bwdc (2012) the energy processing by power electronics and its impact on power quality. int. journal of renewable energy development 1(3): 99-105 p a g e | 100 © ijred – issn : 2252-4940 systems. different measurement considerations and methodologies are used for determining harmonics compliance. total harmonic distortion is an important index widely used in defining the level of harmonic content in electrical facilities. the total harmonic distortion quantifies the thermal effect of all the harmonics. it is the ratio of the rms value of all the harmonics to the fundamental (iec 61000-2-2). harmonics distort the sine wave which becomes apparent when a distorted current or voltage waveform is mathematically analyzed. through fourier analysis, an arbitrary periodic function can be divided into a number of sine waves. a non-sinusoidal signal can be decomposed in a sum of some of its multiple in frequency called harmonics. a distorted current or voltage waveform consists of the fundamental frequency and harmonics. most harmonic analysis algorithms are based on fft to obtain the voltage and current frequency spectrum from discrete time samples. fft is a very efficient algorithm for evaluating fourier transform. this algorithm becomes considerably more efficient when a large number of data in a discrete sequence need to be transformed into frequency domain. it is the objective of the electric utility to supply its customers with a sinusoidal voltage of fairly constant magnitude. the generators that produce the electric power must generate a very close approximation to a sinusoidal signal. grid connected wind turbines are equipped with power converter systems that produce besides the fundamental signal also the harmonic signal. power electronic converters in wind energy systems generate harmonic currents and harmonic voltages, which are injected into power system. harmonic filters reduce distortion by diverting harmonic currents in low impedance paths. these filters can be either active or passive in nature. passive filters use passive components in their design. they are considered passive because they do not use any active components like semiconductors. modern active filters are superior in filtering performance, smaller in physical size, and more flexible in application, compared to traditional passive filters using capacitors, inductors and/or resistors. active filters use sophisticated electronics and power igbts to inject equal and opposite harmonics onto the power system to cancel those generated by converters. different topologies of the interfacing converter can be used in wind energy conversion to minimize the current harmonic content. most of the topologies without isolation have an intermediate dc link. it means that on the generator side there is a rectifier while on the grid side is placed an inverter. some low pass filter can be added to the inverter to fulfill standard requirements. the overall performance of an interface converter is highly affected by the properties of the combination of the generator side and grid side converter. 3. electronic converters electronic converters can be used to convert power supplies from one voltage and frequency to another. a common example is the system that first converts the alternating current (ac) to direct current (dc) and then returns the dc back to ac. a power electronic device for converting alternating current to direct current is the rectifier. a power electronic device that converts direct current to alternating current is called inverter. the conversion is performed with semiconductor switching devices such as diodes and transistors. variable speed wind turbines have some advantages over fixed generation speed, but in this case, the frequency is variable. for this reason, it is necessary to rectify the ac signal coming from the synchronous generator and operate an inverter to synchronize its frequency, phase and amplitude with the utility. the inverter synthesizes an alternating current sine wave from the direct current voltage by the switching frequency. the pwm drives the gates of the power transistors in the inverter. control is by a voltage source pwm inverter that uses igbts for power transistors. the igbts are configured in a full h-bridge with freewheeling diodes. figure 1 shows a three-phase rectifier topology, a dc link and a frequency inverter. the freewheeling diodes are not shown in the figure 1. the ability to produce near sinusoidal waveforms around the fundamental frequency is dictated by the modulation technique controlling when the power transistors are on and off. the topology shown in figure 1 is responsible for keeping the frequency at a fixed value. a fixed frequency output waveform is generated by the inverter to synchronize with the utility. for three-phase spwm, three modulating signals that are 120 degrees out of phase with one another are used in order to produce out of phase voltages. the rectifier used in figure 1 is a simple diode bridge rectifier with capacitor voltage filter. this type of rectifier inherently draws non-sinusoidal current from the generator. fig. 1 ac to ac converter topology int. journal of renewable energy development 1 (3) 2012: 99-105 p a g e | 101 © ijred – issn : 2252-4940 there is a new topology called active three-phase rectifier that shape the three-phase input current to be sinusoidal and to be in phase with the generator output voltage. in this new topology, also called back-to-back pwm-vsi, the diodes are replaced by six controlled switches to shape the input current. the advantage of this new topology is to reduce alternating current harmonic content and improve power factor to generator side. this topology is shown in figure 2. the capacitor decoupling between the grid inverter and the generator inverter offers separate control of the two inverters, allowing compensation of asymmetry both on the generator side and on the grid side, independently [1]. figure 3 shows the harmonic spectrum of a six pulse diode bridge rectifier. the spectrum is the distribution of the amplitudes of the various harmonics as a function of their harmonic number, often illustrated in the form of a histogram. the amplitude of a harmonic is often expressed with respect to that of the fundamental. in the example of figure 3, the fifth harmonic current has a magnitude close to 50% over the value of the amplitude of the fundamental current. it is shown that as the order of harmonic increases, the current amplitude decreases. the amplitude of the harmonics may vary depending on the value of the capacitance in dc link and the power being transferred through the rectifier. also, the value of inductance that exists between the rectifier and the source influences the amplitude of the harmonics. fig. 2 the back-to-back pwm-vsi topology fig. 3 harmonic spectrum of a six pulse diode rectifier the main effects of current harmonics within the armature winding of the generator are additional losses in the stator and in the rotor (copper and iron), and pulsating mechanical torque. this causes a reduced efficiency and mechanical fatigue due to vibrations. harmonics increase the rms value of the current for an equal active power generated. it is relatively common practice to “derate” (reduce the output of) generators when supplying nonlinear loads to minimize the effects of harmonic heating. many of these problems can be resolved, however, using low pass filters at the input of the rectifier. the system can use active igbt rectifier in place of conventional diode rectifier. an active rectifier by its construction produces extremely low levels of harmonics. this ensures a total harmonic distortion of less than 5%. the last stage of the topology shown in figure 1 represents the frequency inverter. the dc to ac power conversion is the result of power switching devices, which are commonly fully controllable semiconductor power switches like igbt’s. the output waveforms are therefore made up of discrete values, producing fast transitions rather than smooth ones. the ability to produce near sinusoidal waveforms around the fundamental frequency is dictated by the modulation technique controlling when the power switches are on and off. modulation technique commonly used includes the spwm technique. three-phase inverter is used in applications that require sinusoidal voltage. figure 4 shows an example of a sine wave generated by pwm technique. three equal waveforms are produced but are phase shifted by 120 degrees. the pwm waveform has harmonics of several orders in the voltage waveform. the other two phases are identically generated but 120 degrees apart in phase. the line to line voltage will not have any triplen harmonics. pwm techniques produce an ac output waveform from a dc source. functions of inverters for wind energy systems are power conversion from variable dc voltage into fixed ac voltage and frequency, and output power quality assurance with low total harmonic distortion. fig. 4 pwm sine wave citation: rocha je and sanchez bwdc (2012) the energy processing by power electronics and its impact on power quality. int. journal of renewable energy development 1(3): 99-105 p a g e | 102 © ijred – issn : 2252-4940 fig. 5 the effect of switching frequency in the sine wave the frequency is controlled by controlling the period of the pwm and that is built up with a microprocessor system and synchronized with the utility frequency. the rms value of output voltage can be controlled by varying the width of the pulse. a little longer pulse width will result in a little higher rms output voltage. the harmonic content at the inverter output has to be effective reduced to admissible values. by controlling the switches to produce pwm, and filtering the output, a nearly sinusoidal line current waveform is obtained. different output filter topologies are commonly used to interface inverter to the grid, namely the l, lc and the lcl filter. the use of the filter coupling the inverter to the grid reduces the high frequency pollution of the grid that can disturb electric system. the harmonic attenuation with using filter permits the use of a lower switching frequency to obtain harmonic limits, increasing efficiency. figure 5 shows the topology required for the power stage of a three-phase inverter and different output waveforms. different modulation frequencies were used to generate the waveforms shown in figure 5. in this figure, the first waveform has a large ripple. in the second waveform, the switching frequency increased and there was a decrease in the ripple. in the third waveform, the switching frequency is higher and the ripple is no longer noticed. in order to generate more precise sinusoidal ac current waveforms and keeping the size of the lc filter small, high modulation frequencies can be used. 4. filters a sinusoidal pulse width modulation is shown in figure 6a and a sinusoidal waveform adapted to connect with the grid can be seen in figure 6b. those waveforms were acquired with an oscilloscope. the pwm waveform shown in figure 6a was filtered before the connection with the grid, in other words, the second waveform, figure 6b, was originated by the first one, figure 6a. fig. 6 sinusoidal pulse width modulation (a) and sinusoidal filtered voltage (b) fig. 7 lc-type low-pass filter in accordance with figure 6, the voltage waveform modulated through the frequency inverter is not adapted to connect with the grid. as a result, a series inductor is placed between the grid and the inverter in order to permit the instantaneous differences of voltage between the both sides. this inductor also dampens the sudden current variations caused by that instantaneous voltage differences. in addition to the inductor, is placed a capacitor to storage energy and to control the current flux to the electrical system. the capacitor effect is to attenuate any suddenly variation of voltage waveform. the emission of harmonic and interharmonic currents from wind turbines with directly connected induction generators has been expected to be negligible in service. wind turbines connected to the grid through power converters however emit harmonic and/or interharmonic currents and contribute to the voltage distortion. inverters based on new technologies have a limited emission of harmonics at lower frequencies compared to the converters used in the first generation of variable speed wind turbines. instead they produce interharmonics at higher frequencies which are easier to filter than at lower frequencies [2]. an lc filter is used to filter the frequencies of high order generated by the inverter. figure 7 shows an lctype low-pass filter usually employed to eliminate the switching frequency component of output harmonics. int. journal of renewable energy development 1 (3) 2012: 99-105 p a g e | 103 © ijred – issn : 2252-4940 a low pass filter only allows low frequency signals from zero hertz to its cut-off frequency to pass while blocking those any higher. in other words, the filter practically maintains the amplitude of the fundamental voltage component generated by the inverter. however, it attenuates the amplitude in high frequencies. depending on the characteristic of the grid, the harmonics can be filtered through the leakage inductance of the transformer and the intrinsic capacitance of the cables. an alternative to the filter previously described is the use of a shunt lc filter tuned in the switching frequency. the advantage of this solution is that this filter would need to be sized only for the rms value of the harmonic current [3]. 5. power quality regulation the energy processing through electronic converters adds advantages to the whole system, but it affects the power quality. this does not necessarily affect the operation of the electrical system. the important thing is that the waveform parameters must be in compliance with the indexes recommended by the energy regulatory authority. the brazilian electricity regulatory agency determines, through indices defined by resolutions, when a voltage waveform is in accordance with the prescriptions for a good operation of the grid. those power quality indices can be found in the distribution procedures of electric energy in the national electrical system [4] and in the management of performance indices of basic system and its components [5]. international standards can be used as reference when national standards or recommendations do not try a specific problem. a recommendation used internationally is the “recommended practices and requirements for harmonic control in electrical power systems” [6]. this recommendation defines maximum values for each harmonic voltage in percentage of the fundamental voltage. the values of the harmonic currents are defined too. the acceptable value for the voltage and current harmonics depends on the system characteristics. an additional recommendation used specifically in wind turbines is the “european standard for testing of wind turbines” [7]. in this recommendation is defining a set of requirements to ensure good power quality in the connection of a wind turbine system with the power grid. 6. wind turbine grid connection there are different technologies to carry out the connection between the wind generator and the electric system. each technology seeks to adapt to the conditions of variation in wind speed, the power available on the shaft, and the requirements for constant frequency and voltage in the power output. fixed speed wind turbines cannot use the full potential of wind energy and therefore are giving way to wind turbines with variable speed control [8]. the asynchronous generators, also called induction generators, are used when the turbine speed will be maintained constant. figure 8 shows a schematic diagram of a wind turbine using an induction generator. this system has a simple construction, low cost, low maintenance and dispenses of synchronism devices. there are two basic needs in this system: thyristors are used to promote a soft starter providing the attenuation of the high starting currents, and the requirement of reactive power to create a magnetic flux necessary to operate the induction generator. this reactive power is usually supplied through capacitor banks, so avoiding the low power factor system. the electronic converter with thyiristors is used in the starting and stopping of the turbine, remaining inactive during steady state operation. this electronic converter is disconnected through a bypass during steady state operation. harmonics are generated during both the starting and stopping operation and that can affect the system operation. the turbine speed can be kept constant by controlling the pitch angle. another way to maintain the speed constant is through the special construction of the blade so that it reaches the stall condition. some wind turbine systems classified as asynchronous generators type use two generators with different number of poles or a generator with two windings in the stator that permit the operation of the system in two different speeds. a second system used is the electric generator with wound rotor, also called the doubly fed asynchronous generator. in this case, the turbine rotor operates with variable speed set to the real situation of the wind speed. the stator winding is directly connected to the grid while the rotor winding is connected to an electronic converter and this is connected to the grid. figure 9 shows a schematic diagram of a wind turbine using a doubly fed asynchronous generator. in this system, slip control of the asynchronous machine allows the rotor to vary its speed without varying the frequency of the voltage waveform in the stator. the slip control is done through an electronic converter that changes the slope of the torque curve of the generator. the transformer shown in figure 9 is required to adjust the level of the output voltage of the converter with the voltage level of the stator. fig. 8 wind turbine with asynchronous generator citation: rocha je and sanchez bwdc (2012) the energy processing by power electronics and its impact on power quality. int. journal of renewable energy development 1(3): 99-105 p a g e | 104 © ijred – issn : 2252-4940 fig. 9 wind turbine with doubly fed asynchronous generator fig. 10 wind turbine with synchronous generator the electronic converter operates in steady state, so harmonics are continually generated. however, as the largest portion of power goes directly to the grid by the stator, a smaller proportion of harmonics is generated. the doubly fed asynchronous generator requires more maintenance because it has collector rings. these collector rings are used to connect the rotor winding to the external circuit. another system that allows using variable speed is the one that uses the synchronous generator. in this system, the rotor operates at a variable speed adjusted to the actual situation of wind speed. the frequency generated depends on the wind turbine rotation. therefore, the generated voltage must be rectified and then to pass for a frequency inverter. the voltage and frequency are adjusted to values of the grid through a frequency converter. figure 10 shows a schematic diagram of a wind turbine using a synchronous generator. an lc low-pass filter or a shunt filter is used at the converter output. all power produced by the synchronous generator passes through the electronic converter while only a small portion of the energy produced by the doubly fed asynchronous generator goes through its electronic converter. therefore, the wind turbine with synchronous generator requires a larger filter for harmonic attenuation. currently, there are permanent magnet synchronous generators that require no gearbox (speed amplifiers) because they have a high number of poles. in this case, the generator is directly driven by the rotor of the wind turbine. this increases system reliability because the gearbox is one of the points of failure. the drawback of this type of generator is its large diameter and weight. the increase in weight of the permanent magnet generator is partially compensated because there is no need for the multiplier making the system more compact. 7. conclusions the availability of electric power within acceptable parameters of power quality is essential to modern society. many modern facilities are sensitive to poor power quality. in this paper, the authors reviewed the application of electronic converters for conditioning power produced by wind turbines. the concept of harmonic voltage and current was clarified as well as the consequence of waveform distortions in the electrical system. some standards and recommendations, both national and international, were cited. the basic principle of sinusoidal waveform pwm was discussed. it was verified the necessity of using an lc filter to attenuate the distortion of voltage and current waveform. several electronic converter topologies used in wind turbines were shown. the discussion showed that the variable speed wind turbines require the use of frequency converters and these converters cause injection currents with harmonic content at the grid connection point. the fixed speed wind turbines produce harmonics only in the start and end stages of operation. these wind turbines systems do not produce harmonics in steady state. abbreviations igbt – insulated gate bipolar transistor. pwm – pulse width modulation. spwm – sinusoidal pulse width modulation. dfig – doubly-fed induction generator. fft – fast fourier transform. vsi – voltage source inverter. references [1] hansen lh, helle l, blaabjerg f, ritchie e, munk-nielsen s, bindner h, sørensen p, bak-jensen b (2001) conceptual survey of generators and power electronics for wind turbines. risø national laboratory, roskilde, denmark. [2] mittal r, sandhu ks, jain dk (2011) grid voltage control of inverter interfaced wind energy conversion system (wecs). international journal of environmental science and development 2(5). [3] araújo sv, antunes flm, sahan e a. engler b (2007) analysis and design of a lcl-filter for a npc inverter in offshore wind power conversion system. apresentado no 9° congresso brasileiro de eletrônica de potência – cobep 2007, blumenau, brasil. [4] agência nacional de energia elétrica (2008) procedimentos de distribuição de energia elétrica no sistema elétrico nacional prodist – módulo 8 – qualidade da energia elétrica. . aneel resolução nº 345. [5] operador nacional do sistema elétrico (2008) gerenciamento dos indicadores de desempenho da rede básica e de seus componentes submódulo 2.8, ons. [6] ieee recommended practices and requirements for harmonic control in electrical power systems, ieee standard: 519-1992. int. journal of renewable energy development 1 (3) 2012: 99-105 p a g e | 105 © ijred – issn : 2252-4940 [7] european standards (2008) measurement and assessment of power quality characteristics of grid connected wind turbines. en 61400-21. [8] dos reis fs, alé jav, adegas fd, tonkoski jr. r, slan e k. tan s (2006) active shunt filter for harmonic mitigation in wind turbines generators. 37th ieee power electronics specialists conference, jeju, korea. international journal of renewable energy development int. journal of renewable energy development 5 (3) 2016: 179-185 p a g e | 179 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, october 15th 2016, all rights reserved contents list available at ijred website int. journal of renewable energy development (ijred) journal homepage: http://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijred potential effect and analysis of high residential solar photovoltaic (pv) systems penetration to an electric distribution utility (du) jeffrey t. dellosa college of engineering and information technology (ceit), caraga state university, philippines abstract. the renewable energy act of 2008 in the philippines provided an impetus for residential owners to explore solar pv installations at their own rooftops through the net-metering policy. the net-metering implementation through the law however presented some concerns with inexperienced electric du on the potential effect of high residential solar pv system installations. it was not known how a high degree of solar integration to the grid can possibly affect the operations of the electric du in terms of energy load management. the primary objective of this study was to help the local electric du in the analysis of the potential effect of high residential solar pv system penetration to the supply and demand load profile in an electric distribution utility (du) grid in the province of agusan del norte, philippines. the energy consumption profiles in the year 2015 were obtained from the electric du operating in the area. an average daily energy demand load profile was obtained from 0-hr to the 24th hour of the day based from the figures provided by the electric du. the assessment part of the potential effect of high solar pv system integration assumed four potential total capacities from 10 mega watts (mw) to 40 mw generated by all subscribers in the area under study at a 10 mw interval. the effect of these capacities were measured and analyzed with respect to the average daily load profile of the du. results of this study showed that a combined installation beyond 20 mwp coming from all subscribers is not viable for the local electric du based on their current energy demand or load profile. based from the results obtained, the electric du can make better decisions in the management of high capacity penetration of solar pv systems in the future, including investment in storage systems when extra capacities are generated. keywords: residential solar pv system, solar photovoltaic (pv) system penetration, net-metering, energy demand, load profile article history: received july 15th 2016; received in revised form sept 23rd 2016; accepted oct 1st 2016; available online how to cite this article: dellosa, j. (2016) potential effect and analysis of high residential solar photovoltaic (pv) systems penetration to an electric distribution utility (du). int. journal of renewable energy development, 5(3), 179-185. http://dx.doi.org/10.14710/ijred.5.3.179-185 1. introduction the global energy demand situation is expected to increase by 56% between the years 2010 to 2040. the us energy information agency reports that among this increase is from the fast growing economies that includes countries in asia, particularly china and india (useia 2013). while renewable energy is one of the two (the other one being the nuclear power) fastest-growing energy source, fossil fuels remain as the leading supply for the world energy requirement through 2040 (useia 2013). in the power sector, coal emerges as the fuel of choice for electricity generation primarily because of its abundance and affordability. it is expected that the use of coal in electricity generation from today to the year 2035 will increase from less than 33% to 50% share (iea 2013). the power sector in the philippines faces the same dilemma as with other asian countries. rene almendras, then secretary of the department of energy (doe), reported on march 2012 that there is a total deficit of 170mw for the peak demand and reserve requirements in mindanao (almendras, 2012, doe 2008). the country’s doe has approved in the last two years four coal-fired power plants in mindanao for installations totaling to 1,300mw capacity to address the lack of electric power supply in mindanao, from the total 4,552mw of the sixteen approved coal-fired power plants nationwide (green peace international 2014). if this strategy by the doe which is to install more coalfired power plants in the years ahead, it has been * corresponding author: +63-917-6349497 email: jtdellosa@gmail.com citation: dellosa, j. (2016), potential effect and analysis of high residential solar photovoltaic (pv) systems penetration to an electric distribution utility (du). int. journal of renewable energy development, 5(3), 179-185, doi: 10.14710/ijred.5.3.179-185 p a g e | 180 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, october 15th 2016, all rights reserved estimated that 90% of the total electricity generated would be coming from coal-fired power plants in the year 2020 (adb 2009). the ever-increasing use of coal as the preferred fuel for electric power generation in the country and abroad however presents disturbing environmental concerns in terms of the carbon emission to the environment (kolhe 2015, munnik et. al. 2010, grean peace int’l., 2005). carbon dioxide (co2) is one of the three green house gases (ghgs) that have increased in the atmosphere since the pre-industrial times and is verified to be the cause of climate change (ipcc 2013, ipcc 2014, usepa 2012). many countries, including countries in asia, are the most vulnerable and have already felt the ill-effects brought about by the climate change, especially the effects of extreme weather events such that of super typhoon yolanda that hit the philippines in 2013 (köppinger 2014). republic act 9154 or otherwise known as the renewable energy act of 2008 was passed into law in the philippines on december 2008. it is the first law in the country that introduced non-fiscal incentives which allows residential owners to implement or generate their own electricity from renewable energy (re) sources through the net-metering policy (dellosa 2015). the implementation of net-metering allowing the interconnections of solar photovoltaic (pv) installations, however, have yet to fully progress in the country, except for areas in metro manila. several electric cooperatives in the country have yet to implement the new policy pending more understanding on the effects of high degree integration of solar pv systems to their operations, especially on the supply and demand as reflected in their daily energy load profile. renewable energy production is considered to play a significant role to lower the preference on the use of coal as fuel for electricity generation around the world (zwickel et. al. 2012). renewable energy generation suppresses the increasing amount of co2 in the atmosphere with the use of these environment-friendly energy sources (latour et al. 2013). solar photovoltaic (pv) power, one of the renewable energy sources, harness available sunlight and convert them to usable electricity. in many countries around the world, solar pv power has already been established as the leading renewable technology that is becoming a primary source of electricity (latour et al., 2013, panzer et. al. 2016). many developing countries including the philippines, however, have a lot to progress with regards to renewable energy generation, especially at the residential levels. but the country finally produced a law on renewable energy known as the “renewable energy act of 2008” which encourages home and business owners to engage in renewable energy generation in the form of wind, solar and even biomass among others (legarda 2008). electric distribution utilities (dus) were required by law to make the renewable energy systems from its qualified subscribers to be connected to their power system (legarda 2008). even with the re law passed by the government, the expectation that it will progress dramatically was not realized and a lot of issues with regards to the re implementations are still being clarified (liss 2013). the rules enabling the interconnections of the solar pv and other re systems were finally approved only on may 2013 (ducut 2013). many electric dus in the country have yet to integrate solar pv systems to their own power systems, since, one of the major issues that confront these electric dus is the uncertainty and unknown implications of the re systems integration . the electric du in the province of agusan del norte has yet to determine the implications of the solar pv systems integration (damiel, 2014). while the philippines is lagging behind in the analysis and investigation of pv grid integration, studies on the potential effects of the high pv systems integration were carried out extensively in different locations around the world (tselepis and neris, 2006, katiraei et. al. 2007, rabbee et. al. 2013, jimenez et. al. 2006, byrne et. al. 2016, elliot et. al. 2014, mather et. al. 2016, thoma et. al. 2004). this study, therefore, was carried out to assess & analyze and determine the potential effect of the residential solar pv system integration with high combined capacities to the energy demand and load management of the electric du in the province of agusan del norte. 2. methodology 2.1 energy consumption profile to obtain a realistic effect of the high solar pv system penetration coming from residential owners, data were needed on the energy consumption profile from the local electric du. consultation meetings were made with some members of the management personnel of the local electric du to obtain the needed information such that the potential effect of the solar pv systems integration on the utility’s energy demand (or load) profile can be analyzed. amongst the critical information sought were: 1. energy consumption per subscriber classification and 2. their actual average energy demand load profile showing their base load, intermediate and peak loads. the energy consumption per subscriber classification will determine what percent of the contribution residential users provide with respect to the total energy demand. the data obtained were summarized and displayed with the provision of a table. also, the data obtained on int. journal of renewable energy development 5 (3) 2016: 179-185 p a g e | 181 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, october 15th 2016, all rights reserved the actual average energy demand per hour and its profile was plotted from 0-hr to the 24th hour. 2.2 analysis on high solar pv capacities in this study, it was assumed that there will be combined capacities of 10 mega watt-peak (mwp) to 40 mwp of total solar pv systems coming from residential owners, at a 10 mw interval. the selection of the 40 mwp as the maximum total solar pv system capacity is based on the initial information that the usual or average hourly demand from subscribers is at 40 mwp. however, it is not clear what particular hour of the day and for how long the 40 mw demand does exist. meanwhile, the 10 mwp interval will provide enough differences to distinguish the effect of one capacity to the next capacity. the consideration of each capacity i.e. a 10 mwp solar pv system, is assumed to have its peak at 12 nn where this is the hottest hour of the day in the country. at this hour, it is assumed that the solar pv system will harvest 100% of the 10 mw capacities. the solar pv system will begin to generate electricity from 6am, which is the usual time of sunrise in the country. the system stops harvesting at 6pm when the sun is no longer available. it was also assumed that the total generated energy for a day of any of the four defined solar pv system capacities is defined below: teh = spvsc (mw) x 6 (hr) (1) where:  teh is the total energy harvested (mw-hr),  spvsc is the solar pv system capacity. from the given formula in (1), it can be computed that a 10 mwp solar pv system capacity will have a 60 mwhr total energy harvested in a given day. on the other hand, the 20 mwp, 30 mwp and 40 mwp systems will have total generated outputs of 120 mw-hr, 180 mw-hr and 240 mw-hr respectively. using the microsoft excel tools, graphs were generated over the 24-hour period reflecting the energy demand from the subscribers, the different solar pv system capacity from all subscribers and the net load profile. the net load profile reflects the net amount of energy from the subscribers’ total demand and the contribution of the solar pv systems. the generated graphs were then analyzed as to how much of the peak and base load demand especially during peak hours were curtailed. the information obtained was then used to analyze the potential capacity reduced from diesel and coal-fired power plant. consultations were also made with the management of the local electric du and their technical personnel on their feedback on the different generated outputs from the effect of the 10 mwp to 40 mwp combined solar pv system capacity integration. 3. results and discussions 3.1 data collected from the electric du data on the hourly average consumption from all subscribers from the electric du were obtained and can be observed from table 1. table 1 actual average hourly energy use or demand in agusan del norte hour energy demand (in mw) equivalent time of the day 1 31.41 1 am 2 30.36 2 am 3 29.23 3 am 4 28.65 4 am 5 28.86 5 am 6 30.45 6 am 7 28.89 7 am 8 28.53 8 am 9 35.29 9 am 10 40.50 10 am 11 44.44 11 am 12 46.09 12 nn 13 44.72 1 pm 14 47.96 2 pm 15 48.00 3 pm 16 46.50 4 pm 17 42.59 5 pm 18 46.36 6 pm 19 50.19 7 pm 20 48.20 8 pm 21 46.93 9 pm 22 44.05 10 pm 23 39.40 11 pm 24 35.07 12 mn source: electric distribution utility in agusan del norte province it can be noted in table 1 the highest energy consumed by all subscribers is at 19th hour or at 7 p.m. the peak energy consumption on the average was at 50.19 mw on this given hour, while the least energy consumption on the average was at seven to eight in the morning. based from the table, it was determined that indeed, the average energy consumption per hour by all subscribers is at 39.27 mw. it was confirmed by the management of the electric du that energy consumption begins to increase from 8am onwards due to several establishments that are opening and are using air-conditioning (ac) system. it was also confirmed that around seven in the evening, most if not thousands of residential owners are back at home and uses ac systems along with their television citation: dellosa, j. (2016), potential effect and analysis of high residential solar photovoltaic (pv) systems penetration to an electric distribution utility (du). int. journal of renewable energy development, 5(3), 179-185, doi: 10.14710/ijred.5.3.179-185 p a g e | 182 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, october 15th 2016, all rights reserved sets and other electrical systems, hence the high energy demand during these hours. fig. 1 below is the load profile plotted using the microsoft excel software obtained from the electric du based from the numbers as provided in table 1. fig. 1 average energy consumption of all subscribers in the province of agusan del norte philippines. shown in fig. 1 also is the base load of the electric du at 30 mw. it is also shown the peak load at 50 mw. based on the discussion with the management of the electric du, the base load requirements are being supplied primarily by both geothermal and hydroelectric power plants, all renewable energy sources. however, the intermediate and peak load demands were supplied by coal-fired and diesel power plants based upon the discussion with the management of the electric du. this means that whenever the demand from all subscribers increases beyond the 30 mw, the energy requirement will be supplied by nonrenewable energy sources such as the diesel and coalfired power plants. this means that beyond the base load supply of the electric du, the use of coal-fired and diesel power plants are prevailing. fig. 2 shows the contribution of the residential to the total annual energy demand from all subscriber type in agusan del norte in one year. the residential consumption accounts for 44% and is the highest among all categories. this simply means that residential owners can play a very significant role in putting renewable energy sources to the grid and prevent further reliance of energy sources which are from diesel and coal-fired power plants which are served during the intermediate and peak hours. demand from industrial and the rest of the subscribers having a total of 42% share can be augmented as well, if industrial companies in the province such as plywood factories will invest in solar pv system or other forms of renewable energy. energy consumption from the commercial establishments having a 14% share are equally capable of similar reductions with re sources deployments. 119,561,937 44% 36,840,799 14% 114,601,018 42% annual energy consumption (in kwhr and %) residential commercial industrial and others fig. 2 actual energy consumption of the different type of subscribers in agusan del norte philippines in one year. 3.2 impact of high solar pv penetration figure 3 shows an output of a 30 mwp solar pv system. it is assumed that the system begins harvesting at 6 am and ends at 6 pm and the peak reaches 30 mw at noon time for all combined residential systems with 100% system efficiency. the total harvest was approximated at 180 mwhr in a day using equation 1. 0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 m e g a w a t t ( m w ) hour simulated solar pv system output fig. 3 generated total output of 30 mwp solar pv systems. fig. 4 shows the generated output of the four assumed pv system sizes from 10 mwp to 40 mwp systems, which is the subject of this study. shown are the peak outputs at 100% efficiency. each of these graphs were then used to determine the impact of each capacity to the existing and actual energy demand or load profile of the local electric du as shown in fig. 1. 0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 m e g a w a tt ( m w ) hour simulated solar pv systems output profile 10 mwp profile 20 mwp profile 30 mwp profile 40 mwp profile fig. 4 generated output of 10, 20, 30 and 40 mwp solar pv systems. base load intermediate and peak load int. journal of renewable energy development 5 (3) 2016: 179-185 p a g e | 183 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, october 15th 2016, all rights reserved fig. 5 shows what it would look like when a 10 mwp combined capacity of solar pv system from residential owners affect the existing load profile of the local electric du. a 10 mwp capacity would stave off partially the intermediate and peak load (orange graph) with the resulting net output in the yellow graph. the impact of this combined capacity can be viewed as moderately significant. however, discussions with representatives from the local electric du viewed this as favorable to their operations as there is a gradual decrease of load from 6 am to 8 am and a gradual increase from 8 am onwards. electric du also preferred the absence of steep changes of load, downward or upward changes, from one hour to the next hour. this is due to the cost implications and the supply from grid suppliers to the demand of the subscribers according to the management of the local electric du. from equation 1, the total potential load reduction during the day with a 10 mw system is at 60 mw-hrs. this would reduce the demand at 2.5 mw per hour on the average (60 mw-hr/24 hours in a day). 0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 m e g a w a t t ( m w ) hour net load with 10 mwp solar pv output actual load solar output (mw) net load profile fig. 5 generated total output of 20 mwp solar pv systems 0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 m e g a w a t t ( m w ) hour net load with 20 mwp solar pv output solar output actual load net load profile fig. 6 generated total output of 20 mwp solar pv systems fig. 6 shows the potential output of a 20 mwp combined capacity integrated to the actual energy load profile of the electric du. it can be observed from the graph that a huge quantity of the intermediate and peak load was reduced from 8 am towards 4 pm. this would translate to the reduction of demand from coal-fired and diesel power plants to supply beyond the energy requirement beyond the base load during the day. the effect of the 20 mwp combined capacity would have a stable load period from 8 am towards 1 pm and slowly ramps up towards the intermediate and peak load from 1 pm and onwards. according to representatives from the local electric du, the resulting load profile with 20 mw is likewise acceptable and favorable with regards to the energy demand and load management. the resulting figure did not show steep changes of energy demand. with a 20 mwp capacity, the total potential load reduction during the day would be around 120 mw-hrs as obtained using equation 1. this would also translate to a reduction of demand from its residential subscribers at 5 mw per hour on the average. fig. 7 and fig. 8 show generated outputs with 30 mwp and 40 mwp solar pv system capacities respectively. 0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 m e g a w a t t ( m w ) hour net load with 30 mwp solar pv output actual load solar output net load profile fig. 7 generated total output of 30 mwp solar pv systems 0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 m e g a w a t t ( m w ) hour net load with 40 mwp solar pv output actual load solar output net load profile fig. 8 generated total output of 40 mwp solar pv systems citation: dellosa, j. (2016), potential effect and analysis of high residential solar photovoltaic (pv) systems penetration to an electric distribution utility (du). int. journal of renewable energy development, 5(3), 179-185, doi: 10.14710/ijred.5.3.179-185 p a g e | 184 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, october 15th 2016, all rights reserved unlike the two previous generated outputs, the 30 mwp capacity staved off significant portions of the intermediate and peak load but at the same time clipped the demand at the base load during the day. the same thing is evident in fig. 4 where the base load was curtailed and resulted to a net demand of 5 to 8 mw between the hours of 10 am to 1 pm. while the results shown in fig. 7 and fig. 8 should be favorable having renewable sources supplying the intermediate and peak loads including the base load, however, for the local electric du this is not their preferred situation. the presence of steep changes of demand from 6am to 10pm and then from 1pm onwards revealed undesirable load management scenario according to them. for the 30 mwp and 40 mwp systems, harvests of 180 mw-hr and 240 mw-hr are expected throughout the day, using the formula in equation 1. these are based on the assumptions that all the systems are operating at 100% efficiency. it was also assumed at the same time that the weather during the day is favorable with the sun available from sunrise to sunset. these assumptions can be considered appropriate to measure the worst-case scenario how combined capacities impact the energy demand profile of the local electric du. based from the discussions with the management of the local electric du, the preferred and acceptable load profile is up to a combined capacity of 20 mwp from all residential subscribers in terms of non-complex energy demand and load management. the presence of steep changes from the 30 mwp and 40 mwp systems discouraged the electric du because of its potential difficulties in energy sourcing from its suppliers. however, if the combined capacities will indeed exceed 20 mwp in the future, the local electric du will prepare proactive actions to facilitate the renewable energy sources integration to their grid. 7. conclusion the objective of this paper was to investigate the potential effect of the high solar pv system penetration to the local electric du in the province of agusan del norte through the conduct of analysis using actual data on the energy demand and load profile of the electric du. it was determined from this study that a combined capacity of 20 mwp from all residential subscribers was the preferred choice of the local electric du with regards to how the energy demand and sourcing is concern. the absence of the steep changes from this load profile was the preferred advantage. however, the electric du confirmed that proactive actions will be planned to accommodate additional renewable energy sources to be integrated in the grid if it exceeds the combined capacity of 20 mwp. acknowledgments i would like to thank the management of the agusan del norte electric cooperative, inc. (aneco), the local electric du in the province of agusan del norte, for generously providing the needed actual data used during the analysis of this study. special thanks to arch. horacio b. santos, general manager, engr. darwin damiel, head of the technical services division, mr. rhenie tagoloan and mr. melquisedic bompat (accounting department) who are all from aneco. references almendras, j. (2012) towards a sustainable and competitive power sector. department of energy, philippine government. asian development bank (2009) the economics of climate change in southeast asia: a regional review. byrne, r.h., concepcion, r., neely, j., wilches-bernal, f., elliot, r., lavrova, o.& quiroz, j. (2016) small signal stability of the western north american power grid with high penetrations of renewable generation. proceedings of the photovoltaic specialists conference. oregon, usa. damiel, d. (2014) discussions on net-metering. agusan del norte electric cooperative, inc. (aneco) dellosa, j. t. 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(2012) special report on renewable energy sources and climate change mitigation. international journal of renewable energy development international journal of renewable energy development 11(1) 2022: 103-110 |103 ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2022. the authors. published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website int. journal of renewable energy development (ijred) journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id efficiency improvement of ground-mounted solar power generation in agrivoltaic system by cultivation of bok choy (brassica rapa subsp. chinensis l.) under the panels manoch kumpanalaisatit, worajit setthapun, hathaitip sintuya, surachai narrat jansri* asian development college for community economy and technology (adicet), chiang mai rajabhat university, mae rim district, chiang mai province, 50180, thailand abstract. an agrivoltaic system is a combination of solar power generation and crop production that has the potential to increase the value of land. the system was carried out at a 25-kw photovoltaic (pv) power plant located at the asian development college for community economy and technology (adicet), chiang mai rajabhat university, thailand. the growth and yield of bok choy (brassica rapa subsp. chinensis l.) and the solar power output were investigated and compared with the control. moreover, the efficiency of the agrivoltaic system was evaluated. the results indicated that the average intensity of solar radiation of 569 w/m2 was obtained. the highest power generation was recorded in the pv with crop production of 2.28 kw. furthermore, the control plot of crop production at 35 days provided higher growth than bok choy plots under solar panels of 2.1 cm in plant height, 6 in leaf number, 2.2 cm in leaf length and 0.2 cm in leaf wide. high-yield of bok choy was also obtained in the control plot of 17.31 kg. although the yield of bok choy is extremely low, possibly because of light intensity, crop cultivation under solar panels could reduce the module temperature to less than the pv control of 0.18 °c, resulting in increased voltage and power generation by around 0.09 %. therefore, an agrivoltaic system is another option for increasing revenue and land equivalent ratio in solar power plants focusing only on electricity generation. however, suitable crops for the space under pv panels should be investigated further. keywords: agrivoltaic system, ground-mounted solar power plants, solar power generation, solar power output, bok choy. article history: received: 1st sept 2021; revised: 7th oct 2021; accepted: 12th oct 2021; available online: 20th oct 2021 how to cite this article: kumpanalaisatit, m., setthapun, w., sintuya, h., jansri, s.n. (2022) efficiency improvement of ground-mounted solar power generation in agrivoltaic system by cultivation of bok choy (brassica rapa subsp. chinensis l.) under the panels. int. j. renew. en. dev., 11(1), 103-110. https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2022.41116 1. introduction presently, solar energy can be converted into thermal or electrical energy. solar energy is the cleanest and most abundant renewable energy source available at present, which can be converted into electricity directly by using photovoltaic (pv) systems (missoum et al., 2021). such systems usually consist of photovoltaic modules, batteries, charge controllers, inverters, load controllers, circuit breakers and wiring (wasfi 2011). in 2018, the global capacity of photovoltaic power plants was over 500 gw (jäger-waldau 2018), most of which comprised groundmounted photovoltaic power plants with a capacity of 471 gw. moreover, the remainder is separated by 27.9 gw of solar roof tops (europe 2018) and 1.1 gw of solar floating (gamarra et al. 2019). the total land-use requirement for ground-mounted photovoltaic power plants was 1,448,612 ha (ong et al. 2013). in line with the global trend, ground-mounted photovoltaic power plants are still favored in thailand. solar power plant installations cover an area of * corresponding author: surachai_nar@g.cmru.ac.th approximately 9,020 ha, which can presently generate total solar power at 2,819 mw per day (chimres et al. 2016). by 2036, the thai government plans to increase the number of solar farms to generate increased capacity at more than 6,000 mw (department of renewable energy development and energy efficiency 2015). the expansion of solar power generation will inevitably require more land area, which may affect not only the land use competition, but also food security in the future. while solar power plants have been promoted in thailand and other countries, the areas under the solar panels have not been fully utilized because they focus only on solar power generation. therefore, a combination of solar power generation and food production to increase the land benefit, also known as an agrivoltaic system, has been studied for its potential advantages (valle et al. 2017; dupraz et al. 2011). in addition, annual income could be increased by using agrivoltaic systems (li et al. 2017; mohammadi et al., 2017). planting crops for agrivoltaic systems involves co-production between the solar power generation and crop production in a single space at the research article citation: kumpanalaisatit, m., setthapun, w., sintuya, h., jansri, s.n.. (2022). efficiency improvement of ground-mounted solar power generation in agrivoltaic system by cultivation of bok choy (brassica rapa subsp. chinensis l.) under the panels. int. journal of renewable energy development, 11(1), 103-110, doi: 10.14710/ijred.2022.41116 104 | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2022. the authors. published by cbiore same time. shade-tolerant plants have been suggested for planting under solar panels (beck et al. 2012). a study by malu et al. (2017) indicated that grape farms deploying the agrivoltaic systems may increase the economic value by more than 15 times compared to conventional farming. moreover, trypanagnostopoulos et al. (2017) found that the plant growing results under shading effect were satisfactory as they were at the same level with a reference greenhouse without a pv-covered roof. there are presently 2 guidelines on employment of agrivoltaic systems which are land utilization under pv panels of fixed pv systems without agricultural plans and planned pv system installation with agricultural plans. it was found that fixed pv system installation for electricity generation as the only purpose was with the environment under pv panels that did not sufficiently suit cultivation. hence, the number of these studies on land utilization under pv panels of pv systems are still very few studies. consequently, in this work, the efficiency improvement of ground-mounted solar power generation through plant cultivation under solar panel were investigated. 2. materials and methods 2.1 ground-mounted pv power plant the study of the agrivoltaic system was carried out at a 25-kw pv power plant located at the asian development college for community economy and technology (adicet), chiang mai rajabhat university, thailand. this pv power plant was designed and installed in the purpose of generating electricity only. the plant consists of 5 pv arrays in a 25 kwp ac micro grid-connected pv system as shown in figure 1. the system is connected to a distribution system in the chiang mai rajabhat university grid. there are 225 amorphous pv modules installed at 2.0 and 0.8 m from the ground on the north and the south direction, respectively, with the total pv panels surface area of 352.15 m2. the modules were installed with a solar charge controller, 40 deep-cycle batteries and a grid-interactive inverter. the system in order to distribute the power to chiang mai world green city (cwgc), consisting of six households, an office, a restaurant, a coffee shop and a convenience store. 2.2 crop plants the condition under the ac micro grid-connected pv system is not suitable for general crop production, however shade-tolerant crops could grow. therefore, bok choy (brassica rapa subsp. chinensis l.) was selected for investigated in this study. the reason was that it is a biennial plant that can grow best in partial shade or receive 3-5 h of sun light exposure each day (chintu, 2021). moreover, it can tolerate temperatures as high as 35°c and as low as -3°c and prefers slightly acidic (ph 5.5 to 7.0) sandy soil rich in nutrients (liu et al. 2019). all plants at the control plot of the experiment were under direct sun light by around 10 h (07.00 a.m. – 05.00 p.m.) while the plants under solar panels by around 20 % were under direct sun light for 3 h in the morning (07.00 a.m. – 10.00 a.m.) fig. 1 25-kw ac pv farm at adicet international journal of renewable energy development 11(1) 2022: 103-110 |105 ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2022. the authors. published by cbiore 2.3 soil preparation for crop production under the pv panels the structure of the soil under the solar panels is sandy loam mixed with rock and is of low nutrient value. therefore, soil under solar panels was amended by organic matter. the soil under 4 pv panels and a control (outside the pv panels) was prepared and ploughed. from the photo in figure 2, the plot should be way around 1 x 15 cm (15 m2). then, it was mixed with an organic compost (pork manure mixed with rice husk at a ratio of 7:3) of 100 kg per bed and released for 30 days. the nutrition of soil was analyzed with commercial soil test kit. results indicated that soil had a slightly acidic ph of 6.2. total nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in soil were report to be 20, 20 and 400 ppm, respectively. after that, bok choy seedlings, 25 days after germination, were transplanted into each plot at 15 cm between the plants and rows, providing a density of 132 plants/plot. they were watered twice a day (07.00 a.m. and 05.00 p.m.) with 500 l of water per day. 2.4 monitoring and evaluation 2.4.1 environment and electricity the solar radiation (08.00 a.m. – 05.00 p.m.), temperature of solar panels, voltage and the current were monitored and recorded during the same day of crop monitoring. moreover, the surface area of the solar panels was also measured. solar power generation was then evaluated and compared with control, as in equation 1 (ekpenyong et al. 2013). (1) 2.4.2 vegetative growth and yield of crops various vegetative parameters including the height of plants, the number of leaves, the size of leaves and the weight of plants were monitored. the plant height was measured from the soil line to the shoot apex. simultaneously, the leaf number per plant was counted followed by measuring the length and width of the leaves. all the various vegetative parameters were recorded every 7 days, starting from the 7th day after transplanting to the harvest date. at 35 days after transplanting, five plants per plot were harvested, weighed, and recorded. after that, they were dried at 60°c with a hot air dryer for 48 h or to constant weight. subsequently, the dry weight of samples was determined for percentage of biomass (kongake et al. 2014), as in equation 2. finally, the total crop yield was also harvested and weighed. the experimental data was statistically analyzed using microsoft excel. analysis of variance (anova) was carried out on every measured parameter to determine the significance of differences between the means of each plot. means for each parameter were separated by duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt) at p ≤ 0.05 (kongake et al. 2015). (2) 3. results and discussion 3.1 environment and electricity the planting period was conducted from july10th to august 14th, 2018, which was a monitoring period for the solar radiation, temperature, voltage and current. meanwhile, the surface area of the solar panels was measured from the top side of panels that faced to the sunlight. 3.1.1 solar radiation the solar radiation indicated that the average solar radiation intensity of 569 w/m2 was obtained. from the graph in figure 3, the highest intensity recorded is below 1,000 w/m2 during daytime from 11.30 a.m. – 12.00 p.m. 3.1.2 temperature the temperature under the solar panels, including with the control, showed that their temperatures were higher than the ambient temperature as in figure 4. however, the average temperature of all solar panels with crop production was lower than the control around by 0.18°c. the result was consistent with barron-gafford et al. (2019). fig. 2 experimental layout and plots for crop production citation: kumpanalaisatit, m., setthapun, w., sintuya, h., jansri, s.n.. (2022). efficiency improvement of ground-mounted solar power generation in agrivoltaic system by cultivation of bok choy (brassica rapa subsp. chinensis l.) under the panels. int. journal of renewable energy development, 11(1), 103-110, doi: 10.14710/ijred.2022.41116 106 | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2022. the authors. published by cbiore 3.1.3 solar power generation pv no.1 and 3 could generate power at around 2.28 and 2.12 kw, respectively, which was higher than the control. the control could generate power of approximately 2.06 kw, which was similar to pv no.2. the lowest power generation was recorded in pv no.4 (~1.87 kw), as in figure 5. the experimental design is not homogeneous since pv no. 4 was covered the shading from trees and a mound of dirt near the array after 03.00 p.m. therefore, pv no.4 generated less electricity than the control. according to the suggestion of sathyanarayana et al. (2015), the area of the shade had a significant effect on the i-v characteristics as well as power output. fig. 3 solar radiation intensities fig. 4 solar panel and ambient temperature fig. 5 solar power generation international journal of renewable energy development 11(1) 2022: 103-110 |107 ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2022. the authors. published by cbiore table 1 growth of plants days vegetative growth plot f test cv (%) 1 2 3 4 control 7th the height of plant (cm) 14.3a 13.1ab 12.4b 13.7ab 13.31b * 6.8 the leaf number 6 5 5 6 5 ns 11.7 the left width (cm) 3.9a 3.5ab 3.3ab 3.7a 2.9b * 15.2 the leaf length (cm) 10.4a 9.3ab 8.7bc 9.0ab 7.2c ** 12.8 14th the height of plant (cm) 16.7 16.1 15.4 16.2 16.8 ns 8.1 the leaf number 8 7 8 8 9 ns 8.1 the left width (cm) 4.4 3.9 4.3 4.7 5.0 ns 17.4 the leaf length (cm) 12.1a 10.0b 11.3a 12.0a 11.5a ** 8.0 21st the height of plant (cm) 18.7a 17.8ab 16.1b 17.4ab 19.3a * 7.9 the leaf number 9ab 8b 10a 9ab 10a * 12.1 the left width (cm) 4.6b 4.1b 4.8b 4.8b 5.8a * 15.2 the leaf length (cm) 13.2a 10.3b 11.7ab 12.7a 13.0a ** 9.2 28th the height of plant (cm) 20.6 20.2 17.1 20.1 21.4 ns 13.6 the leaf number 11b 10b 12ab 11ab 14a * 13.6 the left width (cm) 5.3b 4.4b 5.3b 5.4b 7.2a ** 19.1 the leaf length (cm) 13.8ab 11.9b 12.1b 14.3ab 15.9a * 14.1 35th the height of plant (cm) 21.5 21.7 20.8 21.6 23.5 ns 10.7 the leaf number 15b 11c 14bc 13bc 19a ** 15.7 the left width (cm) 5.6b 4.8b 5.9ab 6.8ab 8.0a * 24.1 the leaf length (cm) 13.9b 12.3b 13.7b 14.5b 17.9a ** 14.5 note: a, b and c-significantly different at p ≤ 0.05 by duncan's multiple range test, *-significant at the 0.05 level, **-significant at the 0.01 level, ns-non significant, cv-coefficient of variation 3.2 vegetative growth and yield similar to the date of monitoring and evaluation for environment and power generation, the height of plants, leaf number, leaf size and weight of plants were analyzed. 3.2.1 height of plants the mean height of bok choy plants was not influenced by the conditions under pv panels. the results as in table 1. show that the average height of bok choy in the control plot after 14 days until harvesting was from 16.80 to 23.5 cm, respectively, which was not significant difference to all the crops in the plots under pv panels. moreover, the stems of the bok choy under the solar panels were thin and smaller than the control plot as in figure 6. the reason was that the bok choy planted under the solar panels received less light intensity. the result was consistent with the experiment by nguyen et al. (2019), in which spinach (spinacia oleracea) farming under lower light intensity resulted in a lower height than suitability. 3.2.2 leaf numbers the shading of the solar panels could reduce solar intensity of 1,200 µmol/m/s (rittiram et al. 2019) for shining on the area under the solar panels at lower than 74 µmol/m/s, which was less than the requirement of bok choy by around 65 %. consequently, the bok choy in the plot under pv panels gave lower leaf numbers than the control as shown in the results in table 1. according to the citation: kumpanalaisatit, m., setthapun, w., sintuya, h., jansri, s.n.. (2022). efficiency improvement of ground-mounted solar power generation in agrivoltaic system by cultivation of bok choy (brassica rapa subsp. chinensis l.) under the panels. int. journal of renewable energy development, 11(1), 103-110, doi: 10.14710/ijred.2022.41116 108 | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2022. the authors. published by cbiore results of nguyen et al. (2019), the low leaf number of spinach plants was obtained under low light intensity. 3.2.3 leaf sizes the length and width of the leaves were found to be significantly influenced at 35 days. the longest and widest leaves were recorded in the control as in table 1. it was observed that the size of the leaves in the control was larger than all bok choy plots under pv panels because the control received sufficient light intensity. the result was consistent with petchthai et al. (2017), who studied the effect of light intensity and light-exposure duration on the growth and quality of lettuce. their experiment found that high light intensity provided the size of the canopy wider and greater leaf size than the lower one. 3.2.4 weight of plants there was significant effect of different plots under pv panels and the control on fresh and dry weight of bok choy. similar to the reasons above for vegetative parameters, the control provided the highest shoots and fresh root weight, shoots and root dry weight, and total fresh weight and dry weight as in table 2. moreover, the highest total yield per plot was recorded in the control, consistent with the experiment by weiguo et al. (2012). they investigated the effects of different light intensities on anti-oxidative enzyme activity, quality and biomass in lettuce. the results showed that high light intensity could affect fresh weight better than low light intensity because the light intensity directly affected the rate of photosynthesis. fig. 6 bok choy plot under solar panels and the control plot table 2 fresh and dry weights of bok choy at harvest date plot no. fresh weight dry weight total total yield (kg) shoots (g) roots (g) shoots (g) roots (g) shoots (g) roots (g) 1 51.8b 5.6b 1.9b 0.4 57.3b 2.2b 2.31 2 26.7b 2.8b 5.6b 3.3 29.5b 8.8ab 1.05 3 49.0b 6.1b 2.4b 0.4 55.1b 2.9b 1.50 4 36.3b 3.8b 1.9b 0.4 40.1b 2.4b 1.16 control 233.9a 23.3a 16.7a 2.82 257.2a 19.5a 17.31 f test ** ** ** ns ** * cv (%) 8.1 8.6 8.1 8.6 12.7 12.7 international journal of renewable energy development 11(1) 2022: 103-110 |109 ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2022. the authors. published by cbiore table 3 efficiency of the agri-voltaic system power generation (kw) crop yield (kg) control pv eff measurement 2.06ab pv no.1 2.28a 2.31 pv no.2 2.05ab 1.05 pv no.3 2.12ab 1.50 pv no. 4 1.87c 1.16 control pot 17.31 f test ** cv (%) 5.04 table 4 correlations between power generation and crop yield variables power generation (kw) crop yield (kg) power generation (kw) 1.000 0.850* crop yield (kg) 0.850* 1.000 note: *-p < 0.05 3.3 efficiency of the agrivoltaic system the combination between pv power generation and crop production or agrivoltaic systems as in table 3 indicated that the power generation were found to be significantly influenced. the highest power generation was recorded in pv no.1 compared to the control. the pv no.3 could generate power higher than the control but there was nonsignificant. the correlation of pv power generation and crop production was significant correlated as in table 4 which the experimental result showed that the highest power generation was generated with the highest crop production under the pv panel. the result indicated that planting crops under the pv panels could reduce the temperature under the pv panels. on the other hand, the control could generate power similar to pv no.2 and was significantly higher than pv no.4 due to the geographical characteristic problem. although the effect from light intensity caused reduced yield of bok choy under solar panels, steam caused by evaporation of water from the soil surface and by transpiration of plant under the solar panels could reduce module temperature. the decrease of pv panel temperature could promote the voltage and increase power generation by around 0.09 %, which was similar to the results of boonsri et al. (2017), peng et al. (2017) and jatoi et al. (2021). 6. conclusion to the point, solar power generation with crop production could promote power generation, but the shading of solar panels interfered with crop production. consequently, the use of agrivoltaic systems should be encouraged. not only because the crop production under the pv panels could promote power generation, but crop cultivation under solar panels is another option to increase revenue and land equivalent ratio in solar power plants which designed and installed for generating electricity only. for solving the problems mentioned above, shade-tolerant crops will be considered for planting under the solar panels. they consist of leafy vegetables (lettuce, celery, spinach and spring onion), root and tuber vegetables (ginger, galangal, sweet potato and carrots) and solanaceous crop (chili). however, in assessing the physical properties of plants, root vegetable cultivation under solar panels can damage to the structure of ground-mounted photovoltaic power plants. nevertheless, leafy vegetables and solanaceous crop as well as crop production conditions should be investigated further. acknowledgments we would like to express our thanks to the asian development college for community economy and technology (adicet), chiang mai rajabhat university, thailand; energy policy and planning office, ministry of energy, thailand, office of naval research, united states and institute of research and development chiang mai rajabhat university, thailand for supporting this research. author contributions: kumpanalaisatit, m., jansri, s.n.: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing— original draft, jansri, s.n.: supervision, resources, project administration, jansri, s.n., kumpanalaisatit, m., setthapun, w., and sintuya, h.; writing—review and editing, project administration, validation. all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. funding: this research was funded by policy and planning office, ministry of energy, thailand, office of naval research, united states and institute of research and development chiang mai rajabhat university, thailand. conflicts of interest: the authors declare no conflict of interest. references barron-gafford, g. a., pavao-zuckerman, m. a., minor, r. l., sutter, l. f., barnett-moreno, i., blackett, d. t., & macknick, j. e. 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https://www.bing.com/search?q=https%3a%2f%2fag2.kku.ac.th%2fkaj%2fpdf.cfm%3ffilename%3d13_19_62.pdf%26id%3d3963%26keeptrack%3d5&form=prthth&pc=eupp_hcte&httpsmsn=1&msnews=1&refig=7412c29a75fc490ba22d914d6626a721&sp=-1&pq=https%3a%2f%2fag2.kku.ac.th%2fkaj%2fpdf.cfm%3ffilename%3d13_19_62.pdf%26id%3d3963%26keeptrack%3d5&sc=0-75&qs=n&sk=&cvid=7412c29a75fc490ba22d914d6626a721 https://www.bing.com/search?q=https%3a%2f%2fag2.kku.ac.th%2fkaj%2fpdf.cfm%3ffilename%3d13_19_62.pdf%26id%3d3963%26keeptrack%3d5&form=prthth&pc=eupp_hcte&httpsmsn=1&msnews=1&refig=7412c29a75fc490ba22d914d6626a721&sp=-1&pq=https%3a%2f%2fag2.kku.ac.th%2fkaj%2fpdf.cfm%3ffilename%3d13_19_62.pdf%26id%3d3963%26keeptrack%3d5&sc=0-75&qs=n&sk=&cvid=7412c29a75fc490ba22d914d6626a721 http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.c.ep.201501.01.html https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v111y2017icp724-731.html https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.09.113 https://doi.org/10.17221/192/2011-hortsci microsoft word ogunjuyigbe et al_183_190.doc int. journal of renewable energy development 7 (2) 2018: 183-190 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, july 15th 2018, all rights reserved 183 contents list available at ijred website int. journal of renewable energy development (ijred) journal homepage: http://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijred hydrokinetic energy opportunity for rural electrification in nigeria ogunjuyigbe ayodeji samson olatunji, ayodele temitope raphael* and ibitoye tahir yomi power energy machine and drives (pemd) research group, electrical and electronic engineering department, faculty of technology, university of ibadan abstract. this paper is part of the ongoing research by the power, energy, machine and drive (pemd) research group of the electrical engineering department of the university of ibadan. the paper presents various sites with possible hydrokinetic energy potential in nigeria with the aim of quantifying their energy potential for rural electrification application. overview of hydrokinetic technology is also presented with the view of highlighting the opportunities and the challenges of the technology for rural electrification. a case study of using hydrokinetic turbine technology in meeting the energy demand of a proposed civic center in a remote community is demonstrated. some of the key findings revealed that nigeria has many untapped hydrokinetic potential site and if adequately harnessed can improve the energy poverty and boost economic activities especially in the isolated and remote rural communities, where adequate river water resource is available. the total estimated untapped hydrokinetic energy potential in nigeria is 111.15mw with the northern part of the country having 68.18mw while the southern part has 42.97mw. the case study shows that harnessing hydrokinetic energy of potential site is promising for rural electrification. this paper is important as it will serve as an initial requirement for optimal investment in hydrokinetic power development in nigeria. keywords: hydrokinetic, hydro-turbine, nigeria, rural electrification article history: received november 16th 2017; received in revised form april 7th 2018; accepted april 15th 2018; available online how to cite this article: olatunji, o.a.s., raphael, a.t. and yomi, i.t. (2018) hydrokinetic energy opportunity for rural electrification in nigeria. int. journal of renewable energy development, 7(2), 183-190. http://dx.doi.org/10.14710/ijred.7.2.183-190 * corresponding author: tayodele2001@yahoo.com 1. introduction in recent time, there is noteworthy interest in hydrokinetic potential globally for power generation using ‘zero head’ or hydrokinetic turbines, which require no dams. nigeria is blessed with copious renewable energy sources (res) that is harmless, clean, and affordable (sambo 2009). this res can be optimally used in solving the challenges of increasing energy demand, cost and adverse effects of fossil fuels. in addition, it can help to combat the increasing health hitches that arise from the use of other conventional energy sources. renewable energy technologies offer many environmental benefits over conventional energy sources (kaygusuz and kaygusuz 2002). the use of electrical energy plays a vital role in economic growth and development of the people’s standard of living. it has been reported by bertsch (2015) that though one-third of the world’s population have access to moving water but not to electricity. majority of the rural residents in nigeria have low standard of living and have limited access to modern amenities like (road, school, communication, etc). despite the efforts in the direction of rural electrification, progress and success rates remain low because of harsh operating conditions, limited resources as well as poor planning (anyi et al. 2010). the living standards of the rural nigerians can be improved by the provision of electricity which is often require to power their loads such as lighting, communication (radio and television), cooling, etc (anyi et al. 2009). rural electrification can be addressed using techniques such as diesel generators, grid-extension and/or renewable energy systems (such as wind, solar, hydro, etc)(ayodele 2014). however, gridextension to rural areas is expensive due to low consumption and poor load factors. this is definitely an unappealing option since most rural residents in nigeria are poor and thus unable to afford electrical services (zomers 2003, ayodele et al. 2016). hydrostatic and hydrokinetic methods are the main methods of harnessing energy from water. hydrostatic method is the traditional way of generating electricity by storing water in reservoirs to create a water head and extracting the potential energy of water through suitable turbine (khan et al. 2008). in hydrokinetic method, the kinetic energy of the flowing rivers is captured and research article citation: olatunji, o.a.s., raphael, a.t. and yomi, i.t. (2018) hydrokinetic energy opportunity for rural electrification in nigeria. int. journal of renewable energy development, 7(2), 183-190, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.7.2.183-190 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, july 15th 2018, all rights reserved 184 converted into electricity by relatively small scale turbines known as hydrokinetic turbines with no head (kusakana 2015). hydrokinetic energy technologies have some advantages over the traditional hydropower system. some of these advantages are: minimum amount of civil work is required; there is no need for acceptable water head and easy installation in free flowing water (khan et al. 2008). as a result of the simple design of the hydrokinetic power system and the natural endowment, there are theoretically huge numbers of potentials sites in nigeria as compared to small hydropower generation. the cost of generating hydrokinetic is lower than that of small hydropower (kusakana 2015). hydrokinetic technology is more economical compared to some other sources of renewable technologies (solar, wind, etc).this paper therefore present the potential of utilizing hydrokinetic technology in nigeria for rural electrification in places where adequate water resource are available. 2. hydrokinetic technology hydrokinetic technology is currently receiving global attention with the intention of overcoming the problems associated with the traditional hydropower generation. hydrokinetic technologies convert kinetic energy from flowing water into electricity, or other forms of energy (güney and kaygusuz 2010). hydrokinetic turbine (hkt) is connected to a generator which will be turn by the blades of the turbine to produce electricity directly from the flowing water in a river stream. the following advantages of the technology are identified over the conventional hydropower: no construction of dam is needed and hence problem associated with massive construction of reservoir is removed; hydrokinetic turbine does not require head which makes the technology suitable for any site, the direction of river flow does not change unlike the wind and solar technology which require additional component to track the direction of the wind/solar. in hydrokinetic technology, no destruction of land and re-settlement as the technology basically rely only on existing kinetic energy in the water stream. 2.1 hydrokinetic turbine the operation principles of the hydrokinetic turbines are similar to that of wind turbines. they are designed to extract the kinetic energy of flowing water, driving a generator to produce electricity. hydrokinetic turbine systems are practically zero-head turbines and are not constrained in a confined environment which makes them different from small hydro turbine systems. small hydro turbines make used of a penstock that transports pressurized water from an elevated hydraulic head. as a consequence of the confined flow and the associated turbine designs, the efficiency of small hydro turbines can be approximately 90% (khan et al. 2009). the most common hydrokinetic turbine designs are vertical and horizontal axis. although, they both execute similar function of extracting kinetic energy from the rivers and ocean, each of the turbines has its own design and performance advantages. the turbines can be mounted in three ways either as bottom structure mounted, floating structure mounted and near surface structure mounted (ogunjuyigbe et al. 2015). the various types of hydrokinetic turbines as illustrated in figure 1 are classified into three major groups: horizontal axis, vertical axis and cross-flow turbines. the turbines under various classifications are depicted in figures 2 and 3. hydrokinetic turbines operate at lower energy extraction efficiency when compared with small hydropower turbines (faure et al. 1986). the propeller type of turbine has theoretical efficiency limit of 59.3% (betz limit) (gorban et al. 2001). in practice hydrokinetic turbines operate with efficiencies between 16% and 42%, depending on the hydraulic conditions of the turbine (faure et al. 1986, gorban et al. 2001). hydrokinetic turbine horizontal axis cross flow vertical axis sc-darrieus (straight blade) h-darrieus (straight blade) darrieus (curved blade) gorlov (helical blade) savonius(straight/skewed) straight axis inclined axis solid mooring buoyant mooring non-submerged generator submerged generator figure 1 .classification of hydrokinetic turbines (khan et al. 2009) int. journal of renewable energy development 7 (2) 2018: 183-190 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, july 15th 2018, all rights reserved 185 (a) inclined axis (b) solid mooring (c) non-submerged (d) submerged figure 2. horizontal axis hydrokinetic turbines (vermaak et al. 2014) (a)in-plane axis (b)squirrel cage darrieus (c) h-darrieus (a) darrieus (b) gorlov (c) savonius figure 3. vertical axis hydrokinetic turbines (vermaak et al. 2014) vertical axis hydrokinetic wind turbines have the following advantages: it is not dependent on the direction of current, the blades are very easy to construct and the span of the blade can be easily increased. however, the efficiency is slight lesser than horizontal turbine and the fixed blade does not start naturally. the horizontal axis wind turbine has the advantages of being more efficiency and the technology is more matured compared to the vertical turbine (coiro 2007). however, the turbine depends on the direction of stream current and it requires complex mechanism for blade rotation 3. opportunities and challenges of harnessing hydrokinetic energy in nigeria this section presents the opportunities and the possible potential of hydrokinetic energy for electricity generation in rural community in nigeria. 3.1 opportunities of hydrokinetic the demand for renewable energy is expected to increase significantly in the nearest future as it is expected that more rural community will be electrified. according to united states energy information administration; the world electricity consumption will likely increase by 73% between 1999 and 2020 especially from sub-sahara africa where the population is fast growing. hydrokinetic energy has great potential to bridge this gap in nigeria as there are presently abundant flowing river in the rural villages across the country that are yet to be tapped. exploitation and utilization of this ample potential in nigeria would provide opportunity in boosting the socio-economic activities in the local communities. hydrokinetic technology can offer opportunity for cheap and affordable rural electrification for meeting the basic needs which can improve the quality of life of the rural dwellers. the bts station which houses the communication equipment can also be powered by hydrokinetic power thereby providing good communication that can reduce ruralurban migration. similarly, the small scale business such as “gari” processing industries can be enhanced by supply from hydrokinetic source, thereby empowering the rural dwellers and improving their economic values. furthermore, social life will be boosted which can promote unity within the community as community halls and central buildings can be powered using this technology 3.2 possible challenges of utilizing hydrokinetic technology in nigeria despite the great opportunities and high enthusiasm in this field, skepticism on technological feasibility still exists. many technologies’s related questions are being put forward continuously in addition to fundamental inquiries (availability of resources, area of application). the possible challenges in developing hydrokinetic technology in nigeria are briefly highlighted in the succeeding sub-section. 3.2.1 resource assessment one of the possible problems militating against hydrokinetic development in nigeria is lack of adequate information due to limited research on hydrokinetic resource assessment in the country. there is need to identify resourceful sites to harness hydrokinetic energy. this would necessitate an investigation of macro and micro scale site assessment, determination of annual energy yield and analysis of river characteristics. presently, this is lacking for hydrokinetic energy as most of the assessments done in nigeria are in support of citation: olatunji, o.a.s., raphael, a.t. and yomi, i.t. (2018) hydrokinetic energy opportunity for rural electrification in nigeria. int. journal of renewable energy development, 7(2), 183-190, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.7.2.183-190 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, july 15th 2018, all rights reserved 186 conventional small hydropower generation (manohar and adeyanju 2009) and not for hydrokinetic generation. hence, lack of databases for hydrokinetic potential in the country is a major challenge. 3.2.2 climatic condition the main drawback of hydrokinetic technology is its resource-dependent power output and its reliance on weather and climatic condition (chen et al. 2007). nigeria has two main seasons: the wet season between april –september and the dry season between october march. thus, it cannot always produce sufficient energy to match the fluctuating load requirements continuously throughout the year without the use of energy storage system (kusakana 2015) especially in the dry season. this often form one of the reasons the investors are shying away from such technology. similarly, the advantages of hybridization with other res may be employed to overcome this limitation. 3.2.3 economics viability the most prevailing factor that hinders the success of most energy technologies is the associated cost of installation. this includes: the capital cost, operations and maintenance cost, scalability, simplicity of design, applications diversity, material and labor engagement. several other factors that may affect the cost indirectly are system reliability, societal acceptance and system performance (khan et al. 2008). due to this various economic and social constraint in addition to the small population in the rural communities, government and private company are always reluctant to invest in this kind of adventure as it always considered being uneconomical due to the small population. 4. estimation of nigerian hydrokinetic energy potential the kinetic energy of flowing water can be determined from the density of the water, the velocity at which the water flows and the cross-sectional area at which the energy will be extracted. the hydrokinetic energy available in a mass of flowing river can be determined using: 31 2 p avr= (1) but q va= (2) therefore, the hydrokinetic potential expressed in (1) can be re-written as: 21 2 p qv= (3) where, p is the hydrokinetic power/available kinetic power; ρ is the water density (1000kgm-3), a is the cross sectional area of extraction (m2), q is the discharge rate (m3s-1), v is the water flow velocity (m/s). hydrokinetic power potential is often reported as a power density which is the power normalized to a unit area. 21 2d p p v a r= = (4) also, hydrokinetic energy density (energy potential) can be written as: d de e t= ´ (5) the power and energy generated by a given hydrokinetic turbine are given as follows, respectively: dhkt pp p a c´ ´= (6) hkt hkte p t= ´ (7) where pc is the coefficient of performance of the hydrokinetic turbine, v is the water velocity (m/s) and t is the duration of power supply (hours) figure 4. map of nigeria showing some major rivers (f.a.o 2012) when considering flows in rivers, one can make the reasonable assumption that the density (ρ) remains constant, even with changes in temperature. the discharge rate, area and velocity remain the only variables parameters required to determine the kinetic power. the calculation of the kinetic power depends on either the discharge rate or cross section area which is either the river cross-sectional area or the area of the device (turbine) that will be used to extract the kinetic energy. for the purposes of this study and to generalize the power potential over such a large land mass, the river cross sectional area will be used. figure 4 illustrates the spread of rivers across the country designating the extent of hydrokinetic potential in the country int. journal of renewable energy development 7 (2) 2018: 183-190 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, july 15th 2018, all rights reserved 187 table 1. some rivers in nigeria and their average discharge (zarma 2006) location river average discharge (m3/s) danko jebba zungeru ii zungeru i shiroro zurubu gwaram izom gudi kafancha kurra ii richa ii richa i mistakuku kombo kiri kramti beli garin deli sarkin dango gembu kasimbila markurdi lokoja onisha ifon ikom afikpo niger niger kaduna kadunai kaduna kaduna jamaare gurara mada kongum sanga daffo mosari kurra gongola gongola kam taraba taraba suntai donga kastina ala kastina ala benue niger niger osse cross cross 1650 1767 343 294 55 55 75 55 41.5 2.2 5.5 4.0 6.5 2.0 128 154 80 266 323 20 45 170 740 3185 6253 6635 80 759 1621 the annual rainfall ranges between 500 and 1000 mm in the arid north and between 1,500 and 4,000 mm in the southern region, the country experiences flowing rivers and streams for two-thirds of the year (f.a.o 2012).river niger and benue are the major rivers in nigeria with average discharge of 5589 m3/s and 3400 m3/s respectively (olatunde and oladele 2013). the list of some flowing rivers in nigeria and their average discharge and their specific locations is presented in table 1 5. case study in this section, a case study is presented for a typical isolated rural community with about 10 households located close to river in the southern part of nigeria. hydrokinetic energy is offered to meet the energy demand of proposed civic center for the remote village. the main occupation of the duelers are fishing and farming. the civic center would serve as a central point where villagers would charge phones and their rechargeable electronics. the center is also expected to serve as common meeting point where the inhabitants can socialize. the daily load profile depicting the energy requirement of the civic center is depicted in figure 5 with average power demand of about 1 kw with a peak load of 1.38kw. the kinetic energy of the flowing rivers is captured and converted into electricity by relatively small-scale turbines. the average water velocity of the river close to the community is about 1.2m/s it was observed to flow with almost constant velocity throughout the day as depicted in figure 6 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 time (hour) lo ad d em an d (w ) figure 5. load profile for the proposed civic center 5 10 15 20 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 time of the day(hour) w at er v el oc ity (m /s ) figure 6. water velocity for the available river close to the village citation: olatunji, o.a.s., raphael, a.t. and yomi, i.t. (2018) hydrokinetic energy opportunity for rural electrification in nigeria. int. journal of renewable energy development, 7(2), 183-190, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.7.2.183-190 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, july 15th 2018, all rights reserved 188 in order to ensure smooth supply of energy throughout the day, the hydrokinetic turbine is made to supply electrical power to the load through the dc bus consisting of battery. hence the total energy supply to the loads come from hybrid of hydrokinetic turbine and the battery as depicted in figure 7 hydrokinetic turbine inverter battery dc/dc converter ac/dc converter load dc bus ac bus figure 7. hybrid configuration of hydrokinetic and battery the total energy supply to the load at time t (i.e. energy from battery and hydrokinetic turbine) can be written as: ( ) ( ) ( )hkt batte t e t e t= + (8) the required storage capacity of the battery system in ampere-hour (ah) can be determined using: d l batt batt inv s a e m dod u ´ = h ´h ´ ´ (9) where da is the battery autonomous days (i.e. the maximum number of days the battery can supply continuous energy without a recharge by hydrokinetic energy source), dod is maximum permissible depth of discharge of the battery and us is the system voltage in volts, batth is the efficiency of inverter (%), invh efficiency of inverter (%), le is the total energy demand. the battery charges when the power from hydrokinetic source is greater than the total load demands. the excess power is ultilised to charge the battery. however, power is drawn from the battery (discharging) whenever the load demands is greater than the power output of the hydrokinetic generator (i.e power deficit). the state of charge of the battery at time (t) is given as: ( ) ( ) ( 1).(1 ) ( ) .lhkt b inv e t soc t soc t e t æ ö = -s + hç ÷ hè ø , charging (10) 1 1 l hkt inv e (t ) soc(t ) soc(t ).( ) e (t) æ ö = -s + -ç ÷ hè ø , discharging (11) the basic parameters used in simulating the battery storage are shown in table 2 table 2 battery storage parameters for the simulation parameter da (days) dod su (volt) batth invh battm (ah) values 2 60% 12 0.9 0.9 350 6. result and discussion this section presents the results quantifying the available hydrokinetic energy potential in various part of nigeria. it also presents the results showing the potential of using hydrokinetic turbine in meeting the electrical energy needs of rural community with good water resources. 6.1 hydrokinetic potential in nigeria the hydrokinetic power potential of the flowing rivers depicted in table 1 is evaluated using (4) given the average velocity of flowing river in nigeria as 3m/s. the sites are classified into two (the northern and southern), this is to allow us understand the hydrokinetic potential in the northern and southern part of the country. the estimation hydro kinetic potential in the northern nigeria is depicted in table 3 while that of southern nigeria in shown in table 4. table 3 estimated hydrokinetic power (mw) and energy potential (mwh) of rivers located in northern nigeria location river hydrokinetic power density (mw/m2) hydrokinetic energy density (mwh/m2) gwaram jamaare 0.3375 8.1 kafancha kongum 0.0099 0.2376 kombo gongola 0.576 13.824 kiri gongola 0.711 17.064 beli taraba 1.197 28.728 garkin suntai 0.09 2.16 danko donga 0.2025 4.86 gembu kastina ala 0.765 18.36 zurubu kaduna 0.2475 5.94 zungeru kaduna 1.5435 37.044 shiroro kaduna 1.323 31.752 donko niger 7.425 178.2 jebba niger 7.9515 360 kasimbila kastina ala 3.33 79.92 makurdi benue 14.3325 343.98 lokoja niger 28.1385 675.324 total 68.18 1805.4936 table 4. hydrokinetic power (mw) and energy (mwh) potentials of some rivers located in southern nigeria location river hydrokinetic power density (mw/m2) hydrokinetic energy density (mwh/m2) onitsha niger 29.857 716.568 ifon ose 0.36 8.64 ikom cross 3.4153 81.9672 afikpo cross 7.2945 175.068 ajura ogun 0.23967 5.75208 apoje osun 1.8025 43.26 total 42.97 1031.255 from table 3, it is observed that river niger (lokoja) and benue has the highest potential for hydrokinetic power in the northern part of nigeria with power density values of 28.43 mw/m2 and 14.33 mw/m2, respectively. the rivers also have energy density of 675.324 mwh/m2 int. journal of renewable energy development 7 (2) 2018: 183-190 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, july 15th 2018, all rights reserved 189 and 343.98 mwh/m2. the total hydrokinetic power and energy potential in the north was estimated to be 68.18 mw/m2 and 1805.4936 mwh/m2, respectively. table 4 reveals that river niger (onitsha) and cross (afikpo) has the highest power potential for hydrokinetic power in southern nigeria with the value of 29.86 mw/m2 and 7.29 mw/m2, respectively. the total power and energy potential of hydrokinetic power generation in the southern part is estimated as 42.97 mw/m2 and 1031.255 mwh/m2. this demonstrates that the country has an estimated total power of 111.15 mw/m2 untapped hydrokinetic potential spread across the nation. this can be used to help meet some of the energy needs of some rural villages. 6.2 meeting load demand of an isolated community using hybrid of hydrokinetic and battery. load audit of a proposed civic center was conducted for a typical village with the intention of meeting the electrical requirement of the building using the available water resource within the community. the average load requirement of the center was determined to be about 1kw. the center is thought to improve the social life of the villagers by providing the central charging point for rechargeable electronics and lighting. based on the load requirements of the civic center and the water velocity of the river, the battery sized was determined to be 350ah and the size of the hydrokinetic turbine was evaluated to be 2.5kw assuming the coefficient of performance cp of 35%. the simulation result showing the load profile of the civic center, hydrokinetic power generation using the 2.5kw turbine (determined using equation 5) and the battery state of charge (determined using equations 6-7 and equations 9 are depicted in figure 8. 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 time (hour) p ow er (w ) load profile battery soc hydrokinetic turbine figure 8. power output of hydrokinetic turbine, state of charge of battery and the load profile of the civic center the figure reveals that the hydrokinetic turbine generates nearly constant power of about 1.34kw throughout the 24 hours period. this is enough to meet the average power demand (about 1kw) of the civic center but will not be able to meet the peak load demand (1.38kw). the constant power from the turbine was as a result of nearly constant water flow velocity of about 1.2m/s throughout the entire period. the figure also reveals that the soc of the battery has a negative correlation with the load profile. this is expected because, whenever there is increase in load demand, more energy is required from the battery to meet the load demand thereby putting the battery in the state of discharge. this is indicated in the figure with the negative trend of the soc of the battery each time there is an increase in load profile. similarly, the battery is charged whenever there is decrease in the load demand. figure 9 depicts the combination of the battery and the hydrokinetic turbine in meeting the electrical power demands of the civic center. the figure reveals that the hybrid of the battery and hydrokinetic turbine generates peak power of 1.6 kw. this indicates that at any period of time, the hydride configuration will effectively meet the peak power demand (1.38kw) of the civic center. the configuration consisting of a 350ah battery and 2.5kw hydrokinetic turbine 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 time (hour) p ow er (w ) battery +hydrokinetic load profile figure 9. power output of hybrid of hydrokinetic turbine and battery in meeting the load requirement of civic center 7. conclusion this paper has investigated the opportunity of hydrokinetic power generation in nigeria as means of rural electrification. the gaps which can hinder the development of hydrokinetic technology in nigeria for rural electrification were identified. also, the potential of some rivers across the country being used for hydrokinetic power generation were explored. this study found that there is huge hydrokinetic potential with an estimated value of 111.15 mw which are untapped in nigeria. the hydrokinetic potential in northern part of the country is estimated to be 68.18 mw while that of the southern part is 42.97 mw. a case study conducted using hydrokinetic turbine and battery reveals that the technology is feasible for rural community. this paper is useful as it reveals the hydrokinetic energy potential in nigeria. it also showcases the potential of using hydrokinetic technology to meet the electrical energy need of isolated communities. furthermore, it can also serve as first hand useful information for investors and project developers who are interested in rural electrification. future research will compare the hydrokinetic technology to other renewable energy generators in term of cost of energy, life cycle cost and reliability in meeting the energy needs of isolated rural communities. reference anyi, m., ali, s. & kirke, b., (2009). remote community electrification. international conference on renewable energies and power quality, (icrepq'09). valencia,spain, 15-17. citation: olatunji, o.a.s., raphael, a.t. and yomi, i.t. 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i.h., (2006). hydropower resources in nigeria. 2nd hydropower for today conference of the international centre for small hydropower (icshp), hangzhou, china. canada, 3-7. zomers, a., (2003). the challenges of rural electrification. energy for sustainable development 7(1), 69–76. international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023, 12 (2), 375-380 |375 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49909 issn: 2252-4940/© 2022.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id qpva-based electrospun anion exchange membrane for fuel cells asep muhamad samsudin a,b* and viktor hackera ainstitute of chemical engineering and environmental technology (ceet), graz university of technology, austria bdepartment of chemical engineering, diponegoro university, indonesia abstract. the anion exchange membrane is one of the core components that play a crucial and inseparable role in alkaline anion exchange membrane fuel cells. anion exchange membranes (aems) were prepared from quaternary ammonium poly(vinyl alcohol) (qpva) by an electrospinning method. qpva was used both as material for electrospun fiber mats and as filler for the inter-fiber void matrix. the objective of this work is to investigate the influence of the inter-fibers void matrix filler concentration on the properties and performance of eqpva-x aems. ftir spectra were used to identify the chemical structures of the aems. the primary functional groups of pva and quaternary ammonium-based ion conducting cation were detected. the surface morphology of qpva nanofiber mats and eqpva-x aems was observed using sem. electrospun nanofiber structures of qpva with an average size of 100.96 nm were observed in sem pictures. the ion exchange capacity, swelling properties, water uptake, and oh− ions conductivity were determined to evaluate the performance of eqpva-x aems. by incorporating the qpva matrix of 5 wt.% concentration, the eqpva-5.0 aems attained the highest ion exchange capacity, water uptake, swelling properties, and oh− conductivity of 0.82 mmol g−1, 25.5%, 19.9%, and 2.26 m⋅s cm−1, respectively. electrospun qpva aems have the potential to accelerate the development of alkaline anion exchange membrane fuel cells. keywords: anion exchange membranes, fuel cells, qpva, electrospinning, nanofibers @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 30th oct 2022; revised: 2nd january 2023; accepted: 29th january 2023; available online: 11th february 2023 1. introduction the decline of energy reserves and the occurrence of ecological damage encourage researchers to develop renewable energy sources that are more environmentally friendly, efficient, and sustainable. efforts to produce electrical energy from mechanical, thermal, and chemical energy have continued in the last few decades (ayaz et al., 2022). among the developed new energy sources, the fuel cell is regarded as eco-friendly alternative energy that can replace conventional fossil fuels with high efficiency of energy conversion and almost no emissions. anion exchange membrane fuel cells (aemfcs), as one fuel cell category, are getting immense attention because of their advantages. the advantages include the opportunity to utilize less expensive transition metals instead of a costly catalyst of platinum group metals (pgm) and a faster oxygen reduction process. due to the counter-direction between the fuel and oh− ions, aemfcs also benefit from reduced fuel crossover and reduced corrosion concerns in alkaline environments (iravaninia & rowshanzamir, 2015; samsudin et al., 2022). anion exchange membranes (aems) are part of a fuel cell that has an essential role in hydroxide conduction, electron inhibition, and gas barrier (hagesteijn et al., 2018; ramaswamy & mukerjee, 2020). despite their positive points, the development of aemfcs faces several difficulties. since hydroxide ions have lower mobility than hydrogen ions, the ionic conductivity of aems tends to be lesser than that of proton exchange membranes (pems) (das et al., 2022). the toxic and expensive solvents are also an issue in the synthesis of some * corresponding author email: asep.samsudinl@live.undip.ac.id (a.m. samsudin) aems. in addition, complex routes and costly equipment have also become a concern (wang et al., 2013). polymers are the backbone material used in the manufacture of aems. to date, many types of polymers have been developed for aems, ranging from poly (aryl ether) based aems (e.g., poly (ether sulfone) (du et al., 2022; wang et al., 2022), poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide)(becerraarciniegas et al., 2019; mayadevi et al., 2022) and aryl-ether free aems (e.g., polybenzimidazole (guo et al., 2022; g. zhang et al., 2022) and aliphatic-based aems (e.g., poly (vinyl alcohol) (huang et al., 2022; samsudin & hacker, 2019, 2021). poly(vinyl alcohol) (pva) is a synthetic polymer that possesses scentless, flavorless, biocompatible, and biodegradable characteristics. due to its beneficial attributes, pva is frequently employed as a backbone polymer for aems development. due to its hydrophilicity, it exhibits a high water uptake and possesses exceptional film-forming characteristics. furthermore, the availability of reactive functional groups and lesser fuel crossover are favorable for chemical crosslinking and other modifications that improve the properties of the membrane (aslam et al., 2018; ding & qiao, 2022; samsudin et al., 2022; susanto et al., 2016; zhang et al., 2013). various techniques and methods for membrane preparation of functionalized polymers have been introduced. solution casting is a membrane casting technique that has been widely used because it is simple, easy, and versatile (samsudin et al., 2022). apart from solution casting, another method that is starting to attract attention is electrospinning. this technique employs a high-voltage source to induce an electric field from research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49909 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49909 mailto:asep.samsudinl@live.undip.ac.id https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0131-5667 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5956-7579 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.49909&domain=pdf a.m.samsudin et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 375-380 |376 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore the spinneret to the collector. a taylor cone emerges at the spinneret's edge at a particular electric field intensity. after intensity overcomes polymer drop surface tension, an electrified solution jet is released from the taylor cone. the solution jet evaporates and solidifies in the collector, forming nanofibers (sood et al., 2016). electrospinning is favorable because it facilitates the formation of interlinked structures, which improves oh− transfer. additionally, electrospinning is effective for achieving a uniaxial alignment of nanofiber-formed polymer chains that has the potential to strengthen the membrane (fennessey & farris, 2004; sood et al., 2016; tamura & kawakami, 2010). despite the many benefits, the fabrication of anion exchange membranes by electrospinning is still limited. yang et al. prepared electrospun aems, which utilized a combination of poly(vinyl alcohol) and chitosan. they investigated the impact of various crosslinking times on the characteristics of the membrane (yang et al., 2018). gong et al. compared imidazolium-functionalized polysulfone (impsf) aems manufactured by the solution casting and electrospinning methods. the results depict that electrospun aems produce higher conductivity and lower swelling properties than cast membranes (gong et al., 2016). du et al. fabricated quaternized poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) electrospun (qpponf)/poly(vinyl alcohol) anion exchange membrane. by varying the ratio between qpponf and pva, it was found that the addition of the ratio of qpponf to pva increased the ion conductivity of aems (du et al., 2020). most developments in the field of electrospun anion exchange membranes have concentrated on nanofiber mats, while studies on matrix fillers are still rare. in this work, qpvabased electrospun nanofiber aems were prepared by an electrospinning method. a commercially available qpva, namely gohsenxtm k-434, was used for both the fibers and the matrix filler between the fibers. the objective of this work is to study the influence of different concentrations of qpva as interfibers void matrix fillers on the aems properties. 2. experimental 2.1 preparation of electrospun aems 12 wt.% of qpva solute was prepared by dissolving qpva (gohsenxtm k-434, 85.5-88.0% hydrolyzed, 18-22 mpa.s, obtained from mitsubishi chemical corporation) in ultrapure water (upw, resistivity ~18 mω.cm) with constant stirring at 80–90 °c overnight. the chemical structure of gohsenxtm k-434 is depicted in figure 1. a quantity of the qpva solution was then inserted into a 10 ml size spinneret needle syringe. a horizontal movable spinneret and a drum collector which a distance of 10 cm were used to increase the dimensional homogeneity of the membrane. then, 20 kv high voltage was introduced between the spinneret edge and the aluminium foilcoated drum collector. the electrospinning was carried out with a polymer flow rate of 0.5 ml/h at room temperature. the relative humidity was set in the range of 50−60%. the qpva fiber mats were heated at 130 °c for one hour to induce physical crosslinking between qpva polymer chains. subsequently, they were soaked in a cross-linker solution composed of 2.5 wt.% glutaraldehyde, 0.2 wt. % hydrochloric acid in acetone to promote chemical crosslinking. to produce dense aems (qpva-x), qpva fiber mats were then submerged in various concentration of gohsenxtm qpva solution at room temperature. then, crosslinking was repeated for aems to increase crosslinking degree qpva chains. the identities of the qpva aems were determined using table 1. the aem's preparation processes are shown in figure 2. fig. 1 the structure of gohsenxtm k-434 table 1 the aems samples composition membrane samples fiber (qpva) (wt.%) matrix filler concentration (qpva) (wt.%) cqpva 12 eqpva-2.5 12 2.5 eqpva-5.0 12 5.0 eqpva-7.5 12 7.5 eqpva-10.0 12 10.0 2.2 ftir analysis an ir-bruker alpha spectrometer was used for the ftir study to determine the major functional group of the membranes. ftir analysis was conducted at a wavenumber of 400–4000 cm−1 and a resolution of 4 cm−1. the ir spectra of the aems were displayed as absorbance versus wavenumber graphs. 2.3 sem analysis sem analysis (zeiss supra 55vp) was conducted to study the morphology of the electrospun qpva aems. the measurement was performed at a voltage of 15 kv. the nanofiber size distribution of the electrospun mats was determined using imagej software on sem results. 2.4 ion exchange capacity (iec) the iec of eqpvax aems was measured by back titration. firstly, the membranes were weighed and then soaked for 24 h in 1 m koh solution to change the aems into oh− form. after removing the koh residue using ultra-pure water for 24 h, the aems samples were then soaked for 24 h in 0.1 m hcl solution. the titration was accomplished using 0.1 m koh solution. iec was calculated using formula 1 (samsudin et al., 2022) as follows: iec = (𝐕𝐕𝐛𝐛−𝐕𝐕𝐦𝐦).𝐂𝐂𝐇𝐇𝐂𝐂𝐇𝐇 𝐰𝐰𝐝𝐝 (1) where, vb, vm, chcl, and wd are the consumed koh volumes of the 0.1 hcl solution without membrane samples, the consumed koh volumes of aems, the hcl concentration, and the dry weight of aems, respectively. 2.5 swelling properties the aems' swelling properties were assessed by measuring water uptake (wu) and swelling degree (sd). the wu was measured by determining the weight difference of the aems after submerging them in water. on the other hand, the sd was evaluated by comparing the volume of aem due to water immersion for 24 h in rt. formula 2 and 3 (movil et al., 2015) were used for calculating the wu and sd as follows: wu = ww − wd wd x 100% (2) sd = vw − vd vd x 100% (3) where, ww, wd, vw, and vd are the wet weight, dry weight, wet volume, and dry volume of aems, respectively. a.m.samsudin et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 375-380 |377 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 2 schematic of the preparation procedure 2.6 ion conductivity electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was utilized to evaluate ionic conductivity (σ). the gamry reference 600 potentiostat was used in conjunction with a standard four-probe conductivity clamp (scribner associates, usa). the impedance of oh− form aems was measured between 0.1 hz and 10 khz frequency and with 50 mv voltage. formula 4 (feketefoldi & cermenek, 2016) was used for calculating the σ as follows: σ = d rm.t.w (4) where d, rm, t, and w are the distance of electrodes, the impedance of membranes, the thickness of wet aems, and the width of the membranes, respectively. 3. results and discussion 3.1 chemical structure of aems ftir spectroscopy was used to verify the chemical composition of eqpva-x aems. figure 3 displays the ftir spectra of eqpva-x aems. the absorption peaks at 3378 and 1022 cm−1 appear to be caused by the –oh and c–o stretch in the pva polymer backbone. the peak in the bending vibration at 2940 cm−1 attributable to the existence of the c–h group. the stretching vibration of the chemical bond c=o was indicated by the intensity at the wavenumber of 1734 cm−1. the intensity at 1434 cm−1 and 1376 cm−1 occur on account of the presence of the ch3 bend and ch2 bend, respectively. a wavenumber of 1240 cm−1 belongs to the c–o–c bond stretching vibration, which indicates the establishment of covalent bonds between – oh groups of qpva and –cho groups from ga. fig. 3 ftir spectrum of eqpva-5.0 fig. 4 chemical structure of crosslinked qpva the intensities at 1098 cm−1 and 841 cm−1 correspond to the c– n stretch and n–h bend of ion-conducting cation groups in qpva. the chemical structure of crosslinked qpva is illustrated in figure 4. 3.2 morphology figure 5a shows the surface morphology of the eqpva nanofiber aems from the sem analysis. it was seen that the nanofibers formed well with no beads. the size distribution of the nanofiber mat is presented in figure 5b. the qpva mats fibers possess a size distribution of 69–⁠179 nm and a mean fiber diameter of 100.96 nm, identifying them as nanofibers (patel et al., 2018). inter-fiber void space, visible as pores between fibers, is observed in the membranes. this inter-fiber void space of the membrane should be occupied with a matrix filler in order for it to be utilized in fuel cells. fig. 5 a) sem image of qpva nanofibers, b) qpva nanofibers size distribution, c) sem image of eqpva-5 aem a.m.samsudin et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 375-380 |378 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore this matrix filler can prevents fuel and oxidant gas transport through the membrane (i.e., gas crossover). the permeability of fuel through aems should be prevented for fuel cells. since this crossover process may lead to voltage loss on account of the mixed potential caused by the penetrated fuel oxidation. additionally, fuel crossover could cause peroxide and excess heat generation, which can degrade the fuel cell (francia et al., 2011; t. huang et al., 2022; inaba et al., 2006). figure 5c shows the eqpva-5.0 aems. since this membrane is derived from matrix addition to the eqpvc nanofibers, we can see that the inter-fiber voids are filled with the matrix while maintaining the nanofiber structure. 3.3 ion exchange capacity (iec) iec can be described as the capability of the aems functional groups to carry out ions displacement, which is integrated and loosely attached to its polymer backbone chain structure by oppositely charged ions in the adjacent solution (elumalai et al., 2018). iec demonstrates the quantity of functional groups or active sites in an anion exchange membrane that is accountable for ion exchange or facilitates the transfer of hydroxide (kumar et al., 2018). iec can be expressed as milliequivalent or millimoles of anionic-exchange groups per gram of the dry membrane (meq g−1 or mmol g−1). figure 6 depicts the ion exchange capacity (iec) of eqpvax aems in hydroxide form of aems at 30°c. the iec of eqpva2.5 aems is 0.46 mmol g−1. the ion exchange capacity increases by around 78% after enhancing the concentration of the qpva matrix to 5 wt.% (eqpva-5.0), which is the highest iec value. when the concentration of the qpva matrix is enhanced to 7.5 and 10 wt.%, the iec decreases to 0.79 and 0.41 mmol g−1. the decrease of iec at higher concentrations of the qpva matrix is possibly owing to the qpva matrix high viscosity, which causes an impediment for the matrix filler solution to infiltrate the interfiber space of the nanofiber mats. consequently, the number of ion-conducting cations in the electrospun qpva aems decreases, followed by the decline of iec. 3.4 swelling properties the existence of water in the anion exchange membranes is significant in the process of conducting hydroxide ions. the ion movement process in aems is highly reliant on the membrane's hydration level (λ, i.e., the water molecules number per oh–), the dispersion and distribution of water, and the solvation of oh− ions (zelovich et al., 2019). water clusters are able to act as anion transport channels within the aems, improving hydroxide conductivity (zhang et al., 2013). . fig. 6 ion exchange capacity of eqpva-x aems. fig. 7 sweling properties of eqpva-x aems. at low water content or low hydration level and in alkaline conditions, oh− ions can react with side cation charge groups, which lessen the iec of aems since only free ions play a part in the conductivity. furthermore, the degradation of the cation charge groups will reduce the performance and lifetime of the aems (tomasino et al., 2022). in addition to the lack of hydration, excessive water content is also avoided in aems. this excessive water content can induce severe swelling, which can cause instability in the membrane dimensions causing mechanical degradation. moreover, the excessive water content may dissolve some of the charged cations bound in the polymer backbone, lowering the iec and causing the anionic conductivity to decrease (vandiver et al., 2014; zheng et al., 2018). the water uptake (wu) and swelling degree (sd) of eqpvax aems are depicted in figure 7. the aem with the lowest qpva matrix concentration (eqpva-2.5) has a water uptake of 17.6 wt.%. by incorporating qpva 5 wt.% (eqpva-5.0), the wu increases by 45% to 25.5 wt. %. however, by further increasing the concentration of the matrix to 7.5 (eqpva-7.5) and 10.0 wt.% (eqpva-10.0), the wu decrease to 20.3 and 16.9 wt.%. the results of the wu are in accordance with the iec values. change in water uptake is significantly connected to the amount of cation groups attached to the aems, which in the case of these eqpva-x membranes, are quaternary ammonium groups from qpva (samsudin et al., 2021). the swelling degree measurement demonstrates a similar tendency to water uptake. the higher the water uptake indicates the higher the water content in the membrane, which leads to swelling formation and results in changes in the dimensions of the membrane. 3.5 hydroxide conductivity hydroxide conductivity is the most crucial characteristic of aems, owing to the principal role of aems as oh− ions conductors. the conductivity of aems is very reliant on the wu and iec of the aems. the high hydrophilicity of the anion exchange membranes is resulted from the high density of cation charge groups within the aems, which provide sufficient anionic conductivity (ayaz et al., 2022). figure 8 exhibits the hydroxide conductivity of eqpva-x aems. the eqpva-x aems demonstrate oh− conductivities in the range of 0.71–2.26 ms cm−1 at 30 °c. generally, the aems with the highest iec and wu also possess the highest hydroxide conductivity, which can also be observed in this work. the eqpva-5.0 exhibits the highest value of wu and iec, which also demonstrates the highest oh− conductivity of 2.26 ms cm−1. the grotthuss mechanism describes how the hydroxide ions migrate along the water molecules chain via the formation and breaking of hydrogen bonds (li et al., 2020). accordingly, as wu increases, water content rises as well, improving the conductivity of hydroxide ions. a.m.samsudin et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 375-380 |379 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 8 hydroxide conductivity of eqpva-x aems. high hydroxide conductivity has a favorable impact on power density and is accountable for reduced power/ohmic losses (cermenek et al., 2018). the higher the ionic conductivity, the more hydroxide ions are transported through the membrane so that more hydroxide ions react with the fuel to produce more electrons. the increase in electrons leads to an increase in the current density, which follows equation 5 (kang & cannon, 2015). 𝐼𝐼 = 𝜎𝜎𝜎𝜎 (5) where i is current density, σ is conductivity and e is electric field. since power density (p) is the multiplication of current density (i) and voltage (v) according to equation 6, an increase in current density will give a proportional increase in power density (o’hayre, 2017). 𝑃𝑃 = 𝑉𝑉𝐼𝐼 (6) this is consistent with a study conducted by samsudin et al. (2021, 2022) that membranes of different conductivity will produce different power densities in the same fuel cell and operating conditions. 4. conclusion anion exchange membranes (aems) composed of gohsenxtm k-434 quaternary ammonium poly(vinyl alcohol) (pva) as material for electrospun fiber mats and inter-fiber void filler have been prepared by the electrospinning method. ftir spectra recognized the primary functional groups of membranes. sem images display the electrospun nanofibers structures of eqpva with a mean size of 100.96 nm and the surface morphology of eqpva-5.0 dense aems. by incorporating the qpva matrix of 5 wt.% concentration, the eqpva-5.0 membrane achieved the highest iec, water uptake, swelling degree, and hydroxide conductivity of 0.82 mmol g−1, 25.5%, 19.9%, and 2.26 ms cm−1, respectively. acknowledgments the authors thank the austrian science fund (fwf) for providing financial support for the study under project number i 3871-n37. additionally, the authors acknowledge kemdikbud (indonesia) and oead (austria) for the iasp scholarship. author contributions: a.m.s.: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, v.h.; writing—review and editing, supervision, resources, project administration. all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. funding: this research was funded by austrian science fund (fwf) under project number i 3871-n37. conflicts of interest: the authors declare no conflict of interest. references aslam, m., kalyar, m. a., & raza, z. a. 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(2018). water uptake study of anion exchange membranes. macromolecules, 51(9), 3264– 3278. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.8b00034 © 2023. the author(s). this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution-sharealike 4.0 (cc by-sa) international license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2022.06.140 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2022.231143 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2006.03.008 https://doi.org/10.30501/jree.2015.70071 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141484 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-444-64017-8.00004-x https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-444-64017-8.00004-x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clay.2020.105702 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2022.03.110 https://doi.org/10.1149/2.0681504jes https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201714800013 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-811441-4.00001-7 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-811441-4.00001-7 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.9b00157 https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14173565 https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11091399 https://doi.org/10.1149/1945-7111/abf781 https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12223965 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2021.33168 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2016.06.027 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4945541 https://doi.org/10.1021/nl1007079 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.2c04115 https://doi.org/10.1149/2.0971410jes https://doi.org/10.1039/c3cs60053j https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2022.125155 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2018.02.043 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.9b01824 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2022.120950 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.03.162 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.8b00034 qpva-based electrospun anion exchange membrane for fuel cells asep muhamad samsudin a,b0f and viktor hackera 1. introduction microsoft word omondi et al.docx int. journal of renewable energy development 8 (3) 2019: 253-259 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940.all rights reserved 253 contents list available at ijred website int. journal of renewable energy development (ijred) journal homepage: http://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijred anaerobic co-digestion of water hyacinth (e. crassipes) with ruminal slaughterhouse waste for biogas production erick auma omondi1*, peter gikuma-njuru2, and peter kuria ndiba1 1 department of civil and construction engineering, university of nairobi; p.o. box 10344-00100 nairobi, kenya. 2 department of environmental science & land resources management, south eastern kenya university; p.o. box 17090200 kitui, kenya. abstract. the use of biomass as renewable energy source is of interest in reducing dependence on fossil fuels and associated impacts of climate change. water hyacinth (wh), an invasive aquatic plant of environmental concern has large biomass that is available for biogas production. co-digestion of this largely lignocellulose biomass with other substrates may correlate process parameters and improve biogas production. this study evaluated co-digestion of wh biomass with various mix proportions of ruminal slaughterhouse waste (rsw) at 24, 32 and 37°c in order to assess the optimum proportion and temperature. the rate of biomethanation increased with temperature from 0.23 at 24ºc to 0.75 and 0.96 at 32ºc and 37ºc, respectively, and similarly methane yield improved from 14 at 24ºc to 40 and 52 l/kg air dried water hyacinth at 32ºc and 37ºc respectively. a wh: rsw ratio of 30% showed optimum acclimatization and methane yield in a residence time of 60 days. the duration of the initial drop in ph that indicates hydrolysis stage decreased with increase in proportion of rsw, indicating faster hydrolysis and fermentation processes. longer and stable latter alkaline ph zone suggested improved biomethanation and greater biogas production. co-digestion with 30% rsw at 24ºc improved biogas yield by 75% from 8.05 to 14.09l/kg biomass, methane component of biogas by 9% from 59 to 68% and reduced the retention time for substrate by 36%, suggesting synergy in co-digestion with respect to biogas quality. changing the temperature from 24 to 32ºc increased the yield by 186% and reduced retention time by 73%. the results demonstrated synergy in co-digestion of the two substrates and the process dynamics that are useful in a possible process commercialization. ©2019. cbiore-ijred. all rights reserved keywords: co-digestion, biomass, biogas, water hyacinth, c/n ratio, ruminal slaughterhouse waste. article history: received: july 19, 2019; revised: sept 22, 2019; accepted: oct 21, 2019; available online: oct 30, 2019 how to cite this article: omondi, e.a., njuru, p.g. and ndiba, p.k. (2019). anaerobic co-digestion of water hyacinth (e. crassipes) with ruminal slaughterhouse waste for biogas production. international journal of renewable energy development, 8(3), 253-259 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.8.3.253-259 1. introduction the use of fossil fuels is increasingly expensive and poses serious health and environmental concerns especially climate change (budiyano et al., 2010). accordingly, biomass is increasingly of interest as a source of renewable energy. short-cycle crops are the most commonly used source of biomass for energy production; however, the use of crops faces the challenge of competing demands for arable land (svetlana and johan, 2010). water hyacinth, an invasive aquatic plant with short doubling times of 7–12 days (reddy and debusk 1985; tag el-din 1992) grows on water and, therefore, does not compete for agricultural land with crops (bett, 2012). o’sullivan et al. (2010) obtained biogas production in the range 200-400 l biogas kg-1 volatile solids (vs). water hyacinth biomass has relatively high carbon to nitrogen ratio, a characteristic desired in substrates for biogas production (subhabrata et al., 2013, omondi et al., 2019). however, the lignocellulose nature of water hyacinth may * corresponding author: omorric@gmail.com (tel: +254 723 631 512) slow down hydrolysis process and conversion to biogas (yadviva et al. 2004). the intricate structure of lignocellulose (bajpai 2016) can limit microbial degradation and result in slow digestion and reduced biogas yield (li, 2015). techniques that are available for improvement of bio digestion include using different pretreatment methods (ofuofule et al, 2009); optimization of dilution on biomethanation of fresh water hyacinth (patil et al, 2011) and effects of particle size, plant nitrogen content and inoculum volume. a simple and inexpensive technology for enhancing microbial degradation of the biomass is correlating process parameters, for example, by co-digestion with other substrates (callaghan et al, 1999; kumar and sharma, 2017). studies have shown that synergies in simultaneous processing of substrates through co-digestion result in better performance than with individual substrates (e.g. li et al. 2011; rao and baral 2011; dias et al. 2014). codigestion has numerous advantages for microbial digestion that include reduced concentration of toxic research article citation: omondi, e.a., njuru, p.g. and ndiba, p.k. (2019). anaerobic co-digestion of water hyacinth (e. crassipes) with ruminal slaughterhouse waste for biogas production. int. journal of renewable energy development, 8(3), 253-259, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.8.3.253-259 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. all rights reserved 254 compounds, increased nutrients concentration, improved substrate loading, supply of buffer capacity and hygienic stabilization of enzymes (tufaner and avsar, 2016). these benefits are important for stability and performance of the anaerobic process (esposito et al. 2012). consequently, codigestion has potential for reduced hydraulic retention times and increased biogas yield. in some previous studies, food waste and cattle manure in the ratio of 2:1 has been found to enhance methane yield by 41.1% and 55.2% corresponding to 388 mlg-1vs and 317 mlg-1vs in batch and semi-continuous reactors respectively (zhang et al., 2012). earnest and singh (2013) observed that codigestion of fruit and vegetable wastes with cow dung in the ratio of 1:1 and 1:2 yielded 245 and 230 ml of biogas respectively and gomez et al., (2006) found that biomethanation potential of primary sludge and vegetable fraction of municipal garbage under mesophilic conditions resulted in biogas yield of 0.60 – 0.80 lg-1vs compared to 0.4 – 0.6 lg-1 vs for co-digestion and primary sludge alone respectively. co-digestion of cattle manure and organic kitchen wastes in the ratios of 1:3, 1:1 and 3:1 was found to enhance biogas yield from 24.12 to 47.13% while improving cumulative biogas yield by 1.01 – 1.84 times (aragaw and andargie, 2013). slaughterhouse waste has significant concentration of nutrients that can complement the digestion of other substrates such as water hyacinth (wei wu, 2010, omondi et al., 2019). however, most of the slaughterhouse waste components with the exception of ruminal waste, have large concentration of proteins, which make them susceptible to ammonia toxicity (callaghan et al., 2002; edstrom et al., 2 0 0 3 ; cuetos et al., 2010, chen et al., 2008). similarly, volatile fatty acids (vfas) tend to accumulate in the reactors causing progressive drops in ph that stress and inhibit the activity of methanogenic archaea (siegert and banks, 2005). rumen contents which have limited protein concentration and occur in the largest proportion in the waste would therefore be the desirable component for co-digestion with water hyacinth. furthermore, rumen waste contains cellulolytic anaerobic bacteria that are suitable as inoculum for degradation of cellulose (aurora, 1983; castillo, 1995). this study evaluated synergy in co-digestion of water hyacinth with ruminal slaughterhouse waste in biogas production. 2. materials and methods 2.1 overview of methods the study investigated biogas production in co-digestion of water hyacinth (wh) from lake victoria with ruminal slaughterhouse waste (rsw). the co-digestion was conducted in batch digesters while biogas output was measured by displacement method. 2.2 sample collection and preparation water hyacinth used was obtained from the shores of winam gulf, lake victoria, in kisumu city at coordinates 0° 5’39.71”s, 34045’2.44”e while ruminal slaughterhouse waste was collected from nairobi’s dagoreti slaughterhouse located at coordinates 1°17'3.71"s, 36°41'1.98"e (figure 1). fresh and healthy mature water hyacinth plants were obtained and packed in sampling bags and transported, within 12 hours, to the university of nairobi’s environmental engineering laboratory, where they were stored in a cold room. approximately 4kg wet samples of fresh ruminal slaughterhouse were placed in sampling bags and transported immediately to the laboratory, where they were stored in a cold room at 4ºc until processing for study. approximately, 5kg of whole water hyacinth plants including leaves, stems and roots, were cut to small sizes of about 2 cm. approximately 50 g was kept for determination of total water content while the rest was dried under the sun for a period of 7 days. the sun-dried water hyacinth was ground to fine particles using a mortar and pestle, placed in plastic bags and stored in a refrigerator. approximately 50 g of the fresh slaughterhouse waste sample was kept for determination of total moisture content while the remaining portion was dried in the sun for a period of 3 days to improve handling and ease storage. the sun-dried samples were kept in plastic bags and stored for biogas production. figure 1. map showing location of (a) wh sampling point in winam gulf, kisumu, kenya (b)slaughter house waste sampling point, dagoreti, nairobi (from: omondi et al. 2019)) 2.3 experimental set-up the experimental setup consisted of eight sets of three round bottom 1,000 ml flasks and a graduated measuring cylinder (figure 2). all the flasks were fitted with tight fitting rubber cocks for airtightness. the first flask was used as the reactor for anaerobic digestion. the reactor was fitted with a thermometer and a ph meter, hi98103 checker ph tester from hanna instruments, for monitoring temperature and ph respectively. a balloon with a needle inserted into reactor headspace was set up to sample gas for characterization. the second flask contained a scrubber solution for co2 and other minor gases, comprising of an alkaline solution prepared using 1 molar sodium hydroxide solution, prepared by dissolving 40 g sodium hydroxide in 1 l of water. three drops of phenolphthalein indicator were added for monitoring ph variation in the solution. the scrubber solution was replaced when the pink/violet colour of the indicator turned colourless. the change in colour is associated with a drop in ph below 8.2. the third flask was for gas int. journal of renewable energy development 8 (3) 2019: 253-259 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940.all rights reserved 255 displacement of water for measurement of the volume of gas produced. water in the displacement bottle was charged with a few drops of methyl orange to make it easier to read the volume in the graduated cylinder. the bottle was kept covered with an aluminium foil to minimize loss of water by evaporation. figure 2. biogas production set up (modified from: omondi et al., 2019) 2.4 anaerobic digestion and biogas production substrate for bio-digestion were prepared by mixing 150 g of wh and rsw in different proportion with 500 ml of water in 1000 ml round bottom reactor flasks; a total of eight reactor flasks labelled d1 to d8. the mix proportions used are shown in table 1. the reactors were tightly sealed using rubber cocks and kept airtight to operate under anaerobic digestion mode for a residence time of 60 days. the biogas generated was passed through the scrubber solution. the volume of resultant methane gas was measured through water displacement method into the graduated measuring cylinder (esposito et al., 2012). the cumulative volume of methane generated, ph and temperature were recorded daily at 9 am. room temperature was also recorded throughout the test. table 1. mix proportions of dried substrates digester water hyacinth (g) slaughterhouse waste (g) percent of cosubstrate (%) d1 150 nil 0 d2 142.5 7.5 5 d3 135 15 10 d4 127.5 22.5 15 d5 120 30 20 d6 105 45 30 d7 75 75 50 d8 0 150 100 gas for characterization was sampled in balloons through a needle in the headspace. gas composition was determined, in triplicate for each parameter, using a gas chromatograph fitted with flame indication detector (gcfid) (sugumaran et al., 2014). the reactors were operated at three different temperatures, room temperature of about 24ºc, 32 and 37ºc. 2.5 biogas characterization the quality of biogas depends mainly on the presence of methane in it where a good quality biogas has high percentage of methane and is therefore desirable for maximum energy production. the percentage of methane in biogas is generally determined by the orsat apparatus, gas chromatograph etc. (holman, 1995). the percentage of methane ch4 can be estimated through recognition of co2 percentage from equation 2: ch4 = 100% [co2% + 0.2% h2s] ……… vol. % (konstandt 1976) (1) in this estimation, methane content is measured by absorption of carbon dioxide with10%, 33% and 40% of koh (habel-hadi, 2008) respectively. the assumption by using this method is that biogas is mainly constituted of methane and carbon dioxide gas, where the other gases produced during anaerobic process are neglected. gas chromatography (gc) is an optimal analytical instrument for the analysis of components such as ch4, co2, h2s and siloxanes which are present in the gas (anderson et al., 2010).this study adopted gc method in analyzing produced biogas. 3. results and discussions 3.1 variations of ph with duration of co-digestion the various stages of anaerobic digestion take place at different ph and hence the ph of the digesting substrates can give an indication of the dominant digestion stage at any time and its duration. generally, the first digestion stage, hydrolysis of lipids and protein to volatile fatty acids and amino acids, resulted in a drop in ph while the onset of acidogenesis stage resulted in rise in ph due to production of co2 and nh3 and the associated co3hnh4 (e.g. malakahmad et al., 2012). further rise in ph occurred in the predominantly methanogenesis third stage because of ceased hydrolysis of volatile fatty acid and continued production of co3hnh4. the hydrolysis stage for rsw mix proportion of less than 15% had a ph less than 6.2 (figure 3a) but increased to 6.8 to 7.5 for the rsw proportions of 20 -100%. varying the rsw proportion from 15 to 20% resulted in greatest increase in the hydrolysis ph from about 6.2 to 6.8. moreover, the reduction of duration of the hydrolysis stage with increasing rsw proportion, from 33 days for 5% rsw to 25 days for 50%, maybe an indication of prolonged acidogenesis and methanogenesis stages with codigestion. the observation correlates with previous studies (e.g. feng et al., 2009). for the 30% rsw proportion, digestion at different temperatures (24, 32 and 37ºc) showed varied changes in ph with time (figure 3b). after the seventh day, when ph was similar for all the reactor temperatures, there was a clear pattern of higher increase of ph with temperature, which may be a result of increased biological activity. 3.2 biogas production for various substrates mix proportion in figure 4, variations in cumulative biogas production over 60 day for reactors with different proportions of wh and rsw operated at room temperature are presented. during the first 7 days, all the mix proportions except 50% and 100% showed some increase in cumulative biogas production. this indicates excellent but acclimatization of wh and wh with low portions of rsw. this may be attributed to high volatile solids originally present in wh biomass which leads to volatile organic acids produced citation: omondi, e.a., njuru, p.g. and ndiba, p.k. (2019). anaerobic co-digestion of water hyacinth (e. crassipes) with ruminal slaughterhouse waste for biogas production. int. journal of renewable energy development, 8(3), 253-259, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.8.3.253-259 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. all rights reserved 256 during hydrolysis of the substrate that tend to reduce the ph, an effect that is counteracted by destruction of the volatile acids and reformation of bicarbonate buffer during methane formation. the 50% and 100% showed a lag in the initial days, with no or minimal production of biogas which may also be attributed to low volatile solids originally present in rsw biomass which leads to slow acclimatization but quick hydrolysis of the substrate characterized by minimal ph drop with methane formers quickly outpacing the acid formers in the leading to a stable biogas yield. achieving a balanced condition requires careful co-digestion to overcome the low growth rate of methane bacteria and achieve a stable ad process (kugelman, 1971). in this study, the largest biogas cumulative yield was observed for slaughterhouse waste alone (100% rsw) (17.8 l ch4/kg substrate) followed by 50 and 30% rsw while the smallest yield was for water hyacinth alone (0% rsw) at 8 l ch4/kg substrate. figure 3. ph variations for (a) different rsw substrate proportions (d1=0%, d2=5%, d3=10%, d4=15%, d5=20%, d6=30%, d7=50%, d8=100%) at 24°c; and (b) 30% rsw mix proportion at 24, 32 and 37ºc 3.3 effect of co-digestion on retention time the effect of co-digestion on retention time (rt) was determined by relating the time it takes to produce equivalent volume of methane for wh alone (0%rsw) at 60 days. thus, the time it takes to produce 8l/kg methane was determined for various mix proportions in codigestion (fig 4). from the results, co-digestion reduced the retention time by 9, 15, 18, 20, 22 and 26 days for 5, 15, 10, 20, 30 and 50% rsw respectively. the results indicate that, co-digesting wh biogas plant with 30% rsw for example will reduce rt by 22 days. therefore, codigestion of wh with 5-50%rsw has significant reduction on rt. co-digestion with proportions greater than 50% rsw will have no further impact on rt as the reduction in rt for rsw alone coincides with that of 50% rsw. figure 4. biogas production for various mix proportions at 24°c 3.4 influence of temperature on biomethenation co-digestion of wh and rsw at 30% rsw proportion at various temperatures; namely, 24, 32 and 37ºc showed the influence of temperature on biomethanation. for the higher temperatures, startup time reduced from three days to one day. the rate of biomethanation improved from 0.23 to 0.75 and 0.96 at 32 and 37ºc respectively. increasing the temperature from 24 to 32ºc increased methane yield from 14 to 40 l/kg or 186%, but increasing the operating temperature to 37ºc only increased the yield by a further 30% to 52 l/kg (fig. 5). consequently, increasing the operating temperature from 32 to 37ºc may not be merited unless the cost benefit of the gas production and reduced capital cost surpasses the extra cost of energy. apart from the increase in biogas yield, change in temperature from 24 to 32ºc reduced the retention time by 44 days, from 60 to 16 days (fig. 5). further increase in temperature from 32 to 37ºc only reduced the retention time by 2 more days, a reduction not very significant to justify the temperature increase. 6,0 6,5 7,0 7,5 8,0 8,5 9,0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 d6 d7 d8 ph (a) 7,0 7,5 8,0 8,5 9,0 9,5 10,0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 d6 (24°c) d6 (32°c) d6 (37°c) duration (days) ph (b) 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 30% duration (days) x1 03 c um ul at iv e c h 4 m l/k g bi om as s int. journal of renewable energy development 8 (3) 2019: 253-259 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940.all rights reserved 257 fig 5. cumulative methane gas production for 30%rsw at 24, 32 and 37°c temperature conditions. 3.5 biogas characteristics the percentage compositions of biogas produced at 24ºc for different rsw are presented in figure 6. methane gas proportion increased with increase in rsw mix proportion in the reactor mixture, from 59% for water hyacinth alone (0% rsw) to a maximum value of 68% for 20% and 30% rsw mix proportions and then decreased to a minimum value of 58% for rsw alone (100% rsw). in contrast the composition of co2 in the biogas decreased with increasing rsw mix proportion in the reactor mixture from 39% for water hyacinth alone (0% rsw) to about 30% for 15%, 20% and 30% rsw mix proportions before increasing to 58% for rsw alone reactor. the proportion of trace gases in the biogas was highest for the rsw alone reactor (4%), approximately double the amount in the other reactor mixtures (2%). consequently, the codigestion of wh with rsw improved the quality of biogas compared to digestion of either substrate alone. this demonstrates a synergy in improvement of biogas quality through co-digestion of the two substrates. figure 6. percentage proportions of methane, carbon dioxide and trace gases in the biogas produced for different co-digestion mix proportions operated at 24°c 4. conclusion this study found that co-digestion of water hyacinth with slaughterhouse increased biogas production by between 25 and 66% for 5 to 20% rsw mix proportion and resulted in 8% improvement in biogas quality. a rsw of 20% produced the best weighted return per unit rsw used. codigestion of wh with rsw reduces the ph fluctuations during the hydrolysis and in turn increases acclimatization and biogas yield varying temperature from 24 to 32ºc had a significant impact in the biogas yield for co-digested wh and rsw biomass at 30% rsw. further increase in temperature from 32 to 37ºc demonstrated insignificant increase in biogas yield and impact on retention time. this study therefore recommends co-digestion of wh with 30% rsw at 32ºc. future studies can determine the outcomes between 24 and 32ºc. references abdel-hadi, m. a. 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(2012). co-digestion of source segregated domestic food waste to improve process stability. bioresour. technol., 114, 168–178. © 2019. this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution (cc by) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) microsoft word singirikonda.docx int. journal of renewable energy development 9 (1) 2020: 43-51 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940.all rights reserved 43 contents list available at ijred website int. journal of renewable energy development (ijred) journal homepage: http://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijred a novel approach using adaptive neuro fuzzy based droop control standalone microgrid in presences of multiple sources srinivas singirikonda and y.p.obulesu* school of electrical engineering, vellore institute of technology, vellore, tamilnadu-632014 abstract. in this paper, a novel q/p droop control strategy for regulating the voltage and frequency in standalone micro grid with multiple renewable sources like solar and wind is presented. the frequency and voltage control strategy is applied to a standalone micro grid with high penetration of intermittent renewable generation system. adaptive neuro-fuzzy logic interface system (anfis) controller is used for frequency and voltage control for renewable generation system. battery energy storage system (bess) is used to generate nominal system frequency instead of using the synchronous generator for frequency control strategy. a synchronous generator is used to maintain the state of charge (soc) of the bess, but it has limited capacity. for voltage control strategy, we proposed reactive power/active power (q/p) droop control to the conventional reactive power controller which provides voltage damping effect. the induced voltage fluctuations are reduced to get nominal output power. the proposed model is tested on different cases and results show that the proposed method is capable of compensating voltage and frequency variations occurring in the micro grid with minimal rated synchronous generator. ©2020. cbiore-ijred. all rights reserved keywords: adaptive neuro-fuzzy interface system (anfis), battery energy storage system (bess), state of charge (soc), frequency control, q/p droop control, standalone microgrid, voltage damping effect, voltage control article history: received: oct 20, 2017; revised: june 12, 2019; accepted: december 22, 2019; available online: february 15,2020 how to cite this article: singirikonda, s and obulesu, y.p. (2020). a novel approach using adaptive neuro fuzzy based droop control standalone microgrid in presences of multiple sources. international journal of renewable energy development,9(1),43-51 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.9.1.43-51 1. introduction micro-grids operating in standalone mode are more commonly exposed to variation in voltage and frequency. the grid becomes weaker than a conventional power system due to an isolated system. in recent years, dependence on renewable energy sources like solar and wind generation system (park & yu, 2001; velasco de la fuentev et al. 2013) has increased the instability of grid due its varying input nature. in case of isolated networks diesel based synchronous machines are used for voltage and nominal frequency control. the pattern recognition and decision making are done by mapping input points to the output using fuzzy logic interface. mostly in an isolated power system, the diesel generator based on a synchronous generator which is used to generate nominal system frequency and voltage with the help of adaptive neuro-fuzzy interface system (anfis). the mapping point of an input to the output using fuzzy logic interface provides a basis from which decisions can be made and the patterns discerned. the simulink software system can access the fuzzy logic test system in a block diagram (sumina, erceg and idzotic. 2005). it describes all membership functions, logical operators and if-then rules. this control strategy is applied specially to penetrate the intermittent renewable power generation to control the frequency and voltage for stable operation of * corresponding author: yp.obulesu@vit.ac.in the system. several methods are being examined to support frequency control. the strategies are enabling to dispatch wind power to operate in a similar manner of a conventional power plant. wind power is a fluctuating motive source, the effectiveness of active power control of wind turbine generators (wtg) will depend upon wind speed (keung et al. 2009). wtg's are supplemented with doubly fed induction generator (dfig) to expand the flexibility of wind power procurement and enhance the controllability (ekanayake, holdsworth and jenkins, 2003). the control approach of dfig is to set a point of active power at fixed pitch angle (ekanayake and jenkins. 2004). with the proper reference frame, idr will come up with the electromagnetic torque (tem) against turbines mechanical torque (tmech) at some rotor speed. consequently, the torque difference between tmech and tem can make rotor to accelerate / decelerate. emmech r tt dt dw j -= (1) )( 2 1 e r ttm hdt dw -= (2) where, wr rotor speed, j inertia of motion, h -inertia constant (s). the primary frequency support from de-loaded wind turbines using variable droop was developed (diaz et research article citation: singirikonda, s. and obulesu, y.p. (2020). a novel approach using adaptive neuro fuzzy based droop control standalone microgrid in presences of multiple sources. int. journal of renewable energy development,9(1), 43-51, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.9.1.43-51 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. all rights reserved 44 al. 2010). in micro-grids with high penetration of wind energy, the fluctuations in the wind form output due to variations in wind speed cause frequency disturbances. a frequency droop control was applied to pv power generation (lalor. mullane and o’malley. 2005). even though the fuel cost is free but its cost of installation is high. pv's operate in the maximum power point tracking (mppt) model to generate maximum income. however, as penetration of pv's increase the frequency regulation capability (mainly provided by synchronous generators) and inertia from synchronous generators decrease which leads to severe frequency fluctuations under some disturbances. moreover, load changes can lead to some significant frequency deviations if pvs don’t have frequency regulation capability. to avoid this, the pvs are designed with a virtual governor to have frequency droop characteristics similar to that of the synchronous generator. however, frequency control strategies using intermittent renewable generation are not beneficial economically. there are various ways to control voltage drop by installing regulators in substations, using online transformer tap changers, shunt capacitors, increasing the size of conductors etc. some sensors, such as smart meters (sm) measure voltage in reference and current at each branch send this information/recorded data to the control center (carvalho et al, 2008; schlabbach, blume & stephanblome, 2001). decentralized voltage control is another method which uses local data to control voltage issues. but this device operates independently and there is no communication between loads and the substation. the effect and the reliability must be maintained for these methods. the linear quadratic tracking method is one of the voltage control method used to obtain desired results. the voltage is considered at each node then the controller increases / decreases voltage to minimize the error. the monitoring of controller is based on entire system conditions. this process can be categorized as decentralized control, but it increases system complexity and it needs more study. analyzing and modeling of power distribution would become more complex and time taking. most control strategies have applied optimization algorithms to meet specific objectives, such as minimizing loss, improving voltage profile, mitigating voltage fluctuation, maintaining voltage within regulated limits (kim 2010). however, these methods will never be perfectly accurate, since they are based on forecasting load demand, wind speed and solar irradiance. the voltage compensator, shunt capacitors, lqt methods which lead to increased additional cost. q/v droop control is widely used for voltage compensation, but the compensation is triggered by sensing the voltage deviation. section 2 describes about proposed methodologies and the control strategy which includes q/v droop control and anfis controller are explained in section 3. the test system operation and its simulation results are observed in different cases in section 4. 2.proposed methodology in a remote power system, the active power/frequency (p/f) and reactive power/voltage (q/v) droop control are used to generate nominal system frequency, voltage and some voltage compensation devices are used for control strategy. if the generating system units’ droop is increased, it's response to the system frequency deviation diminishes. however, frequency control strategies using intermittent renewable generation are not beneficial, because they cannot make the most of their ability to utilize free energy. bess is used to support the frequency of micro-grid. the system stability and operational security can be improved by using bess (divya and ostergaard 2009). by improving the controllability of res generators, bess provides a resolution to overcome the frequency control issues. q/v droop control is widely used for voltage compensation, but the compensation is triggered by sensing the voltage deviation. the recommended strategies include 1. bess is used to generate small system frequency instead of using diesel generators which does not depend on the mechanical inertia of a synchronous generator. 2. soc (state of charge) of the bess is used by the diesel generator at a convinced value and the reference significance of the soc is adjusted to limit the output power of the diesel generators to within a permissible range. 3. q/p droop power is added to the renewable generation which has damping effect to avoid voltage fluctuations induced by its active power fluctuations. 4. adaptive neuro-fuzzy logic controller reduces the frequency and voltage fluctuations and improves the system performance. 3. control strategies to maintain frequency and voltage control, there are many strategies to a conventional power plant. a frequency control droop was added to pv generation. but these control strategies are not economically beneficial, since they cannot, maximize their usage of free energy. so, by adopting bess (battery energy storage system) the control strategies enabling to support system frequency deviating from its nominal value (shayeghi, shayanfar and jalili 2009). with the aid of active power/frequency (p/f) and reactive power/voltage (q/v) droop control and voltage compensation devices are applied to the isolated power system. the q/v droop control is widely used for mitigating voltage fluctuations, since the voltage fluctuations are triggered by sensing the voltage deviation. a. test system configuration the proposed control strategy with anfis (adaptive neuro-fuzzy interface system) is tested on the below test system as shown in fig 1, location of loads and power generation system are also indicated. the distance. the ratings of the power generation using different sources considered in this analysis are given in table 1 (rana, singh and mishra, 2017). table 1. power ratings of different sources considered for analysis no name of source rating(mw) 1 diesel generator 14 2 wind generator 9.1 3 pv system 1 4 bess 15 int. journal of renewable energy development 9 (1) 2020: 43-51 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940.all rights reserved 45 fig.1 power system configuration block diagram. the nominal system frequency and voltage considered in this study are 50hz and 11kv respectively and the change in load during the day and night are shown in the table 2. the inverters are modeled as two level and the gate signals to the inverter switches are generated using conventional sinusoidal pulse width modulation. table 2 system load demand bus number day(mw) night(mw) 2 3 1.5 3 2 1 5 1 0.5 6 1 0.5 8 2 1 9 0.2 0.1 10 0.2 0.1 11 0.1 0.05 12 0.5 0.25 total 10 5 b. frequency control strategy battery system is used to deliver power at nominal frequency instead of using synchronous machine. as the frequency of the system is depending on the generator speed and inertia bess rather than diesel generator is adopted to overcome this weakness to control the system frequency (scott, wilreker and shaltens, 1984). the bess controls the nominal system frequency by adopting relevant switching mechanism based on the control scheme designed. chargeable characteristic of bess is used to the execute frequency control strategy which enables battery system to take twice the amount of change in load value than any other devices with same rate of power. the rapidly changing charging and discharging abilities of bess make it to respond quickly to the fluctuations in output power of renewable generation system (senjyu, miyazato and yona 2008). however, soc and implementation of control scheme using frequency droop in figure 2 is not achieved by the bess alone. bess should work in synchronization with diesel generator where the frequency, voltage and phase are to be matched. to generate nominal system frequency, the diesel generator should be controlled (serban, marinescu 2011). during normal operation of diesel generator in fig.3, the switch is moved to node a to control the power output diesel generator reducing the discharge from bess and hence maintaining soc at the desired value socref. soc load control is same as the conventional load frequency control and socref is chosen as 0.5pu. the charge and discharge cycle of the bess is controlled by the operator depending on the requirement. fig.2 implementation of the rid-side inverter control scheme fig.3 proposed soc based scheme for control of diesel generator the diesel generator output active power of is maintained within specified value ranging from 0 p.u to 1 p.u by adding the anti-windup function and output limiter value at the output of the pi-controller. the frequency of the system is mostly depending upon the effective implementation of bess control strategy. to overcome the reliability problem that may arise due to tripping action of bess, the switch is connected to node b, when the bess is isolated from the network due to reduction in soc value. during the node b connection of switch, the diesel generator is controlled same as conventional one. the pdi,ref is obtained from the output of the pi controller, it adjusts the valve actuator of diesel engine there by increasing the mechanical input to the synchronous generator, where tv is the valve actuator time constant 0.05s and td diesel engine time constant 0.5s. pdi is the output active power of the diesel generator. the diesel generators acting as auxiliary source for soc control which resembles the frequency control and its priority is changed to control soc of the bess rather than frequency control. c. voltage control strategy the excitation of the diesel generator helps in maintaining its nominal voltage with in the specified limits. in contradictory to frequency control which can be done in central control, the voltage control should be done locally. the control algorithm for grid side inverter control of the wind generator is shown in fig.4. to solve these voltage variations caused by the renewable system, a new q/p droop strategy for voltage control is applied to the distributed generators (s, r, jang 1993). base bus rate qv v v p q k d = (3) citation: singirikonda, s. and obulesu, y.p. (2020). a novel approach using adaptive neuro fuzzy based droop control standalone microgrid in presences of multiple sources. int. journal of renewable energy development,9(1), 43-51, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.9.1.43-51 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. all rights reserved 46 where vid is the d-axis component of inverter voltage and viq q-axis component of inverter voltage. iid and iiq are the dand qcomponents of the inverter currents, ws represents the angular frequency of the system voltage, lf represents the inductance of the filter, kqp and kqv are the droop coefficients of q/p and q/v, operating points of active and reactive power are represented by po and qo, vbus is the voltage at generation bus. fig. 4 grid-side inverter control of the wind/solar system when voltage droop is not activated the generating system is made to operate at unity power factor when qo kqv is varied from 0 to 25 depending on the ability of power generation. mppt control is applied by giving wind speed or solar irradiance as inputs to generate reference active power value (pref). pref, p measured value are given to pi controller converting it to iid,ref . id which is parks transformation value. the error obtained by comparing iid,ref and iid is fed to pi controller generating vd*. it can be written as, vid,ref = vsd + vd*𝛚slfiiq (4) q/p droop control is the comparison of active power whereas q/v droop control is the comparison of voltage control. kqp, kqv are the q/p and q/v droop coefficients respectively. kqp and kqv convert the error to reactive power component. qref= qo + qp + qv (5) where qo is the operating point of reactive power and is set to zero. again qref and q are given to pi controller and generates iiq,ref. iiq,ref are compared with iq in the pi controller generating an error vq*. viq,ref = vq* + vsq + 𝛚slfiid (6) therefore, vid,ref and viq,ref are fed as input to the dq-abc transformation and is converted into viabc,ref using inverse parks transformation for sinusoidal pulse width modulation which generates six pulses for the inverter. the speed of the generator is taken as 1.2 p.u, pitch angle is 0 and the speed of the wind is 11m/s. instead of using pi controller in the control schemes, adaptive neuro fuzzy logic controllers are used to improve stability and performance of the system. solar irradiance is about 660w/m2. by adding mppt control scheme and boost converters to maximize the utilization of free energy and to maintain constant output power. d. adaptive neuro-fuzzy interface system (anfis) the effective technique called anfis (adaptive neuro-fuzzy interface system) which was developed by dr. roger jang. apart from various optimizing methodologies in soft computing, the fuzzy logic and neuro computing has visibility, which leads to neurofuzzy systems. the combination of artificial neural network (ann) and fuzzy interface systems (fis) has attracted the interest of researchers in various applications. fuzzy logic interface system is a mapping point to map an input space to output space from starting point to the ending for all. fuzzy logic is an intriguing area of research because it has a premium quality of trading off among significance and precision. neuro adaptive learning methods similar to methods used for training neural networks is used for tuning parameters of fuzzy membership functions. this methodology is called as adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (anfis) . the backpropagation (bp) algorithm is used to trine the adaptive neural network and 7*7=49 rule based fuzzy logic command-line functions are used for training sugeno-type fuzzy inference systems using given input/output training data (jang 1993; srinivas singirikonda, sathish goud, & harika reddy, 2014). 4. result and discussion to establish the effectiveness of the proposed control strategies, simulation results are observed during the day time in the standalone micro-grid with high penetration of renewable generation system. voltage waveforms of pv, wind power, bess and diesel generator are clearly presented in matlab simulation. the matlab simulation diagram for adaptive neuro fuzzy control strategy for standalone micro grid system with multiple renewable sources show in fig.5. fig.5 matlab simulation diagram of adaptive neuro fuzzy control strategy for standalone micro grid system with multiple renewable sources case i: day time during the day period, the speed of the wind is considered to be varying from 10.5 to 11.5 m/s and set to an average of 11m/s, the solar irradiance ranges at 660w/m2. the active and reactive power of wind, solar are set at 0.413 and 0.495 respectively. the bess come into action during voltage variations whereas the duty of the diesel generator is to support bess by maintaining soc. int. journal of renewable energy development 9 (1) 2020: 43-51 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940.all rights reserved 47 there are some oscillations of soc at diesel generator due to inertia of the machine leading to slow system dynamics and output variations in active power of renewable generation systems. without droop control, filter and inverter switching losses may lead to slight reduction in soc using droop control method soc fluctuations are reduced with the support of diesel generation, even though the fluctuations in soc is maintained at desired value. the frequency also fluctuates from its desired value without droop but the deviations are reduced with proposed droop method. fig.6 frequency control results for case i: (a) active power of wind and pv (b) active power of bess (c) active power of diesel generator (d) soc (e) frequency frequency fig.7 voltage control results for case i: (a) reactive power of wind power (b) reactive power of pv power (c) bus voltage of wind power (d) bus voltage of pv (e) frequency fig.6 shows the output active power of pv and wind, and active power flow characteristics of diesel generator bess. the results show that the diesel generator takes full response in the absence of droop control, for the output fluctuation of the renewable generation system with droop control, bess supports diesel generator to meet the power demand with p/f droop control method. fig.7 shows the variation of reactive power of wind and solar power respectively without implementation of droop control, the renewable generation system has same power factor, but by applying q/v droop control, the reactive power is controlled by compensating voltage deviation. by implementing the proposed method, the reactive powers of solar and wind are controlled, also mitigates the voltage fluctuation. the bus voltage of pv and wind are kept near to nominal value using q/v droop control. even though, the fluctuations are not effectively prevented. there is a considerable reduction in voltage fluctuations when q/p droop control is implemented. fig.8 comparison of active power with adaptive neuro fuzzy logic controller and pi-controller during day time the fig 8 shows simulation results for adaptive neuro fuzzy interface system (anfis) and pi-controller. anfis response rate is faster than pi controller and the simulation time to get output is less and easy to access and also the participation of dg id reduced to some extent giving optimal solution. case ii: night time at night time, the solar irradiance is 0 w/m2 and speed of the wind varies from 7.1 to 10.2 m/s and set to an average of 8.5 m/s. the reactive power value kqp are set as 0.473 for wind and 0.514 for pv power. fig.10 shows the power output from pv and wind, also the output active power of diesel generator as well as battery system. the output power response is like that of day time but the diesel generator output power is reduced and it is observed from the simulation results, accordingly socref is to be increased. the diesel generator is made to generate active power within allowable range. it is also observed that the frequency deviation during the night is more compared to day time, but frequency is maintained at 50 hz during the proposed method. fig.9 frequency control results for case ii: (a) active power of wind and pv (b) active power of bess (c) active power of diesel generator (d) soc (e) frequency. citation: singirikonda, s. and obulesu, y.p. (2020). a novel approach using adaptive neuro fuzzy based droop control standalone microgrid in presences of multiple sources. int. journal of renewable energy development,9(1), 43-51, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.9.1.43-51 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. all rights reserved 48 fig.10 voltage control results for case ii: (a) reactive power of wind power (b) reactive power of pv power (c) bus voltage of wind power (d) bus voltage of pv the fig.10 shows that during voltage control mode the output power fluctuation of wind generator is greater than that in day case. the more compensation of reactive power has led to more wind power output power fluctuation of during the day. since there is no solar irradiance, the voltage fluctuations are prevented. the change in voltage of the pv during the droop and proposed method is less. in fig.11, the violet color indicates the anfis controller output whereas the blue color denotes the pi controller. more over the bus voltages are maintained at a constant rated value even though the solar pv is not able to produce active power. the active participation of dg in compensating load power requirement makes the system to operate at constant frequency. the below figure 11 show that, the system operation with fuzzy control gives fast response in case of network variations. fig.11 comparison of active power with adaptive neuro fuzzy logic controller and pi-controller during night time. case iii: worst case (when there is no solar irradiance and wind speed) to study the robustness of the proposed method the absence of both solar and wind is considered as worst case. in this case, solar irradiance has to be varied, and the load demand is same as day time. hence the kqp is set as 0.413 for wind and 0.495 pv based on day time data. fig.12 shows active power response of the of wind and pv power generation systems. however, frequency remains unchanged. fig.12 frequency control results for case iii: (a) active power of wind and pv (b) active power of bess (c) active power of diesel generator (d) soc (e) frequency the fig.13 represents the voltage control simulation results. as a result, there are some deviations around some points but the proposed method performs better than others. it is observed that the participation of bess and dg is more in this case and the reactive power requirement of the load, wind generator are compensated by the solar inverter setup. the bus voltages are also maintained at constant rated value even in the worst-case operation. the simulation results of fig.14 show the comparison of both pi and adaptive neuro-fuzzy logic controllers even in worst case has better performance. fig.13 voltage control results for case iii: (a) reactive power of wind power (b) reactive power of pv power (c) bus voltage of wind power (d) bus voltage of pv fig.14 comparison of active power with adaptive neuro fuzzy logic controller and pi-controller during worst case int. journal of renewable energy development 9 (1) 2020: 43-51 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940.all rights reserved 49 case iv: effect of load change and bess tripping on the system performance. fig.15 load change simulation results for case iv: (a) active power of bess and diesel generator (b) soc (c) frequency here consider two cases (i) load change (ii) tripping of bess for the frequency control strategy. fig.15 shows the load change in day time. there is a load decrement at 0.5mw at 3sec of time. soc and frequency are maintained same as previous cases. the fig.16 shows the load change simulation of adaptive fuzzy controller scheme and pi controller. taking time (sec) on x-axis and active power (mw) on y-axis. fig.17 represents the results for the case of while battery system is tripped. the bess is tripped out of the system due to fault maintenance etc. the diesel generator operates by changing its switch position to ‘b’ when bess trips out of the system. fig.18 shows the tripping of bess simulation results of adaptive fuzzy controller and pi controller scheme. fig.16 comparison of active power during load change with adaptive neuro fuzzy logic controller and pi-controller fig.17 bess tripping simulation results for case iv: (a) active power of bess and diesel generator (b) frequency fig.18 comparison of active power with adaptive neuro fuzzy logic controller and pi-controller during bess tripping case v: considering pv bus only fig.19 simulation results for case v: (a) reactive power of pv power (b) bus voltage of pv power in this case, the output of wind power system is kept constant and active power fluctuation of the pv system is considered and the effect of voltage control strategy on pv power system bus are observed. the pv power system shows results in fig 19 and the reactive power is limited. case vi: adjusting charge/ discharge of bess bess should be controllable for the energy efficiency perspective. by varying the slope of the ramp of soc, bess is controlled to output the desired level of active power. fig.20 shows charging of soc at 1mw and active power of battery storage system and diesel generator. fig.20 simulation results for case vi: (a) active power of bess and diesel generator during charging (b) soc during charging citation: singirikonda, s. and obulesu, y.p. (2020). a novel approach using adaptive neuro fuzzy based droop control standalone microgrid in presences of multiple sources. int. journal of renewable energy development,9(1), 43-51, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.9.1.43-51 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. all rights reserved 50 bess is consequently adjusted such a way to discharge if the power output of the diesel generator varies at t ramp rate and the effect is shown in fig.21. the bess is controlled in this manner, to discharge active power required by adjusting ramp rate of soc which includes the controller of diesel generator. by comparing with different cases, the system performance in case-1 with anfc is better when compared to all other cases because, all sources are active at day time and whereas solar energy is limited in night time. with the use of adaptive neuro fuzzy controller, the output active power wind and pv are 7mw and 50kw.frequency and soc are maintained as 50hz and 0.5p.u. fig.21 simulation results for case vi: (a) active power of bess and diesel generator during discharging (b) soc during discharging. table 3 comparison of results with and without controller cases without controller (pi controller) with adaptive neuro fuzzy logic controller 1. day time active power is 2.7mw at 1.4sec. frequency is 49.8hz with some oscillations. soc is 0.48 p.u active power is 2.8mw at 1. 2sec.the frequency is maintained 50hz constant. soc is 0.5p.u with less damp of oscillations and settles faster than pi 2. night time active power of wind and pv are 3.8mw, diesel generator is 3mw.reactive power of wind is 0.48 and pv is 0.52. bus voltage of wind and pv are 0.97 and 0.98 p.u active power of wind and pv are 4mw, diesel generator is 3.2mw reactive power of wind is 0.473 and pv is 0.514. bus voltage of wind and pv are 0.98 and 0.99 p.u 3. worst case (no solar irradiance and wind speed) active power is 2.6mw at 1.8sec time. reactive power of wind and pv are 0.413 and 0.495mvar active power is 2.8mw at 1.5sec time. reactive power of wind and pv are 0.5and 0.8mvar 4. i) load change active power is 4.9mw at 3.1sec of time active power is 4.9mw at 2.8sec of time ii) tripping of bess active power is 2mw at 3.1sec of time active power is 2mw at 2.8sec of time and the frequency is maintained constant as 50hz. 5. conclusion to mitigate the problems of diminishing voltage and frequency fluctuations, adaptive neuro fuzzy interface system is used, which has quick response rate compared to pi-controller. the implementation of bess leads to stable operation of the system maintaining the frequency at nominal value of 50hz. without any deviation. for this reliable voltage control a novel q/p droop is introduces into the control scheme for controlling the reactive power flow in test system with multiple renewable generators. the active power fluctuations are effectively prevented by damping voltage fluctuations in the renewable generation. the output active power of pi and adaptive neuro fuzzy controllers are compared and simulation results are observed on the graph during different cases. simulation results are observed in matlab software by using these control strategies. the anfis controller improves system stability without any interruptions and produces effective performance. references carvalho, pedro m, s., correia, pedro f. & ferreira, luís a, f, m. 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(2013) photovoltaic power system with battery backup with grid-connection and an islanded operation capabilities. ieee transactions on industrial electronics, 60(4),1571 – 1581. © 2020. this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution (cc by) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) microsoft word soulayman_et al.docx int. journal of renewable energy development 8 (1) 2019: 33-39 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. 2019. all rights reserved 33 contents list available at ijred website int. journal of renewable energy development (ijred) journal homepage: http://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijred synthesis parameters of biodiesel from frying oils wastes soulayman soulayman* and dayoub ola department of applied physics, higher institute for applied sciences and technology (hiast), damascus, syria abstract. this study is devoted to produce biodiesel from recycled wastes frying oils (wfo) using commercial grade chemicals in an attempt to help reducing the cost of biodiesel and pollution coming from wfo. the base – catalyzed transesterification method was applied. the variables affecting the yield and characteristics of the biodiesel produced from wfo were studied. sodium hydroxide is used as catalyst. different reaction times, different methanol/wfo volume ratios and different catalyst/wfo weight ratios were used with purpose of achieving the best conditions for biodiesel production a series of experiments were carried out, using methanol/wfo volume ratios from 10% to 30% and catalyst/wfo weight ratio from 0.2% to 0.8%. it was found that in treating wfo which contains 0.12% of water by weight and having an acid value of 0.52 mg of koh/g of oil, and an iodine value 130.42 gi/100 g of oil, no need in acidic pretreatment. moreover, it was found that, for wfo with an acidic value of 0.52 mg koh/gwfos, results show that a methanol/wfo volume ratio of 13% and a catalyst/wfo weight ratio of 0.4% give the highest yield of methyl esters. a pilot production unit of 400l/day of production capacity was designed and constructed on the basis of laboratory experiments and the process was verified on the pilot scale. ©2019. cbiore-ijred. all rights reserved keywords: recycled frying oils, biodiesel, transesterification method, commercial chemicals, experiments, pilot station. article history: received october 18th 2017; received in revised form may 17th 2018; accepted december 8th 2018; available online how to cite this article: soulayman, s. and ola, d. (2019) synthesis parameters of biodiesel from frying oils wastes. int. journal of renewable energy development, 8(1), 33-39. https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.8.1.33-39 1. introduction in syria, thousands litres of fatty wastes are discarded each year into sewage systems. this adds to the cost of treating effluent or pollutes waterways, or is integrated into the food chain through animal feeding, thus becoming a potential cause of human health issues. there are several end–uses for this waste, such as the production of soaps or of energy by anaerobic digestion, thermal cracking (zaher, 2003), and more recently the production of biodiesel. from a waste management standpoint, producing biodiesel from used cooking oil is environmentally beneficial, since it provides a cleaner way for disposing these products in comparison with what is typically done. moreover, the fuel thus obtained performs in similar way to fossil fuel, with the advantage of reducing greenhouse emissions because it is a renewable resource. anyway, a global biofuel economy, with a division of labour favouring the most efficient producers, would be a key boon to developing countries. their yearround growing seasons and cheap farm labour offer a valuable competitive advantage over colder and high production cost rich countries. yet, the emerging global market in biofuels is running into political trouble. many reviews of biodiesel production processes by transesterification are available, (ma & hanna 1999, demirbas, 2003, lotero et al.. 2005, ferreira, cardoso & da silva, 2012, gnanaprakasam et al., 2013, talebian * corresponding author: soulayman1952@gmail.com kiakalaieh, amin, mazaheri, 2013, araujo, andrade, silva, dupas, 2013, alemayehu gashaw & abile teshita, 2014). however, the use of several low molecular weight alcohols and homogeneous acid and basic catalysts for transesterification has been studied with success over years (nye, 1983, peterson& scarrah, 1984, schuchardi, sercheli & vargas, 1998, khan, 2002). the production of biodiesel continues to be an axis of research for different research groups all over the world (see for example (dorado et al., 2002 a, dorado et al., 2002b, guo & leung, 2003, zhang, dube, mclean, and kates, 2003, van gerpen, 2005, felizardo et al., 2006, charpe & rathod 2011, puna et al., 2013, medina-valtierra & ramirez-ortiz, 2013, seid yimer, & omprakash sahu, 2014)). basic homogeneous catalysts have surpassed the acid ones, because the reaction is faster and lead to the same yield of transesterification (above 90% for both) (schuchardi, sercheli & vargas, 1998). on the other hand, sodium and potassium hydroxides react with the alcohol to give water. this reaction is undesirable, because water can react with triglycerides, fatty acids, or esters in hydrolysis reactions and subsequent saponification (peterson& scarrah, 1984). in spite of their lower reactivity, sodium and potassium hydroxides can also lead to high reaction yields just by increasing the catalyst quantities. the transesterification reaction reaches its equilibrium state and the transformation accurse essentially by mixing the research article citation: soulayman, s. and ola, d. (2019) synthesis parameters of biodiesel from frying oils wastes. int. journal of renewable energy development, 8(1), 33-39, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.8.1.33-39 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. 2019. all rights reserved 34 reactants. the presence of a catalyst accelerates the adjustment of the equilibrium considerably (ma & hanna 1999). the stoichiometric reaction requires 1 mole of triglyceride and 3 mole of alcohol. this study is intended to consider aspects related to the facility of the production of biodiesel from waste/recycled oils using commercial grade chemicals in an attempt to help reduce the cost of biodiesel and reduce waste and pollution from waste oils. the variables such as methanol to wfo molar ratio, the reaction temperature, the reaction time and the amount of catalyst that affect the yield and characteristics of the wfo based biodiesel were studied. the achieved results were analysed and a set of recommendation was proposed. an educational pilot production unit of 400l/day of production capacity was designed, constructed and exploited on the basis of experimental results. 2. materials and methods 2.1 materials this research was carried out at higher institute for applied sciences and technology (hiast), damascus, syria during the years 2010-2015. the wfo was collected from hiast's restaurant. it consisted only of soybean oil. the cooking temperature of the oil varied from 150 to more then 200 oc. the oil was kept at these temperatures for 6 hours per day and was replaced weekly. because of their low cost, commercial grade chemicals such as methanol and sodium hydroxide (naoh) were chosen as alcohol and alkaline catalyst for transesterification process. pure (merck gr) chemicals were also used but practical differences were not observed. therefore, all provided results are based on grade commercial chemicals. moreover, a pilot production unit has been designed and constructed. this unit operates with wfo feedstock and commercial grade chemicals. fig. 1 describes the processing steps and methods used to produce biodiesel and pure glycerine from wfo with the production capacity of 400 l/day. 2.2 frying oil pre-treatment when reacting the wfo, filtration operation is always done to remove any suspended matter. moreover, in the conventional transesterification of fats/vegetable oils for biodiesel production, free fatty acids and water always produce negative effects, since their presence causes soap formation, consumes catalyst and reduces catalyst effectiveness, all resulting in a low conversion (kusdiana & saka, 2004). the waste frying oil (wfo) pretreatment to remove water was done using primary vacuum pump at 80 oc and by heating treatment at 110 oc. the treated oil contains 0.12 wt % of water, an acid value of 0.52 mg of koh/g of oil, and an iodine value of 130.42 gi/100 g of oil. generally, the synthesis of biodiesel from low quality oils such as wfo containing a low to moderate amount of free fatty acids (ffas) in addition to moisture and other impurities is challenging due to undesirable side reactions. the pretreatment stages, involving an acid catalyzed pretreatment integrated with water separation, are necessitated to reduce ffas concentration and water to below threshold limits prior of being processed by standard biodiesel manufacturing. besides reducing ffas concentrations, acid catalysts are able to catalyze triglycerides (tg) transesterification, opening the door for the use of acid catalysts to perform simultaneous ffa esterification and tg transesterification. fig. 1. flow chart to produce biodiesel and pure glycerin from wfo. 2.3 basic – catalyzed transesterification procedure a sample of 300 (ml) of wfo was transferred to a two – neck woulf flask equipped with a thermometer and reflux condenser. a magnetic bar was used for stirring. naoh pellets were completely dissolved in methanol and added to pretreated restaurant waste oil. the mixture was heated until the desired temperature was reached (60oc), and the transesterification reaction begun. the reactor was kept at around 60 oc for 2 h. the study was carried out using a methanol/wfo volume ratio which varied from 10 % to 30 % and catalyst quantity equivalent to 0.36 – 1.44 wt % of oil and stirring speed of 600 rpm. the scheme of the experimental stand is shown on fig. 2 with primary vacuum pump. the scheme of the experimental stand without using primary vacuum pump is similar to that of fig.2 with exception that thermal treatment is provided under temperature of 125oc. the same primary vacuum pump used in the wfo pretreatment was used also in biodiesel drying. 2.4 purification of methyl esters phase at the end of the reaction period (2 h), the mixture was transferred carefully to a separating funnel to stand there for two hours. the lower layer (glycerol, methanol and most of the catalysts) was drained out. the upper layer (methyl esters, some methanol and traces of the catalyst) was then heated at temperature 100 oc for 0.5 h in order to remove the excess of methanol and subsequently cleaned thoroughly by washing with water to provide a purified biodiesel (to bring ph down to 7). the washed methyl esters were then dried by distillation. alcohol catalyst waste frying oil mixing reactor reaction separation drying distillation control analysis washing alcohol glycerol distillation production storage h2so 4 baco3 filtration pure glycerin pretreatment h2so 4 int. journal of renewable energy development 8 (1) 2019: 33-39 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. 2019. all rights reserved 35 fig. 2. biodiesel production using primary vacuum pump flow chart. 3. results and discussion 3.1 wfo and biodiesel gas chromatography analysis gc (gas chromatography) analysis was performed for identifying the hydrocarbon compounds of produced biodiesel. the separation was carried out by using capillary column rtx5ms 30 m × 0.25 mm id, 0.25 µm with helium at 137.7 ml/min as a carrier gas and 1:100 split ratio. fatty acid composition of the waste frying oil is given in table 1 while the biodiesel composition is given in table 2. the wfo results are in accordance with those of (zambiazi, przybylski, zambiazi & mendonça, 2007), and (giakoumis, 2013). the little bit differences between the provided compositions of different authors are normal. hammond et al., (2005) mentioned that fatty acid composition of soybean oil changes considerably with maturity and with seed oil production. in typical soybean triacylglycerols, the palmitate and linolenate tend to decrease with maturity, whereas linoleate increases. oleate tends to increase to a maximum and then decline slightly. soybeans selected for a typical fatty acid compositions show quite different patterns. tabel 1 fatty acid composition of waste frying oil (wfo). fatty acid name formula weight (%) a b c myristic ch3(ch2)12cooh 1.06 0.06 0.12 palmitic ch3(ch2)14cooh 12.04 9.90 11,44 stearic ch3(ch2)16cooh 3.57 3.94 4.14 oleic ch3(ch2)7ch= ch(ch2)7 cooh 21.79 21.53 23.47 linoleic ch3(ch2)3(ch2ch= ch)2(ch2)7 cooh 54.84 56.02 53.46 linolenic ch3 (ch2ch= ch)3(ch2)7 cooh 6.70 7.15 6.64 a)present work, b) analysis results taken from (zambiazi, przybylski, zambiazi & mendonça, 2007) and c) analysis results taken from ( giakoumis, 2013). the biodiesel composition results obtained in the present work (see table 2) are in accordance with those of (carvalh et al., 2012) and (hammond et al., 2005). tabel 2 methyl ester composition produced from waste frying oil (wfo). methyl ester formula weight (%) a b c d myristic ch3(ch2)12coo ch3 0.06 0.06 0.04±0.5 palmitic ch3(ch2)14coo ch3 11.30 10.7 11,4 10.57±0.43 stearic ch3(ch2)16coo ch3 3.64 3.3 3.2 4.09±0.34 oleic ch3(ch2)7ch= ch(ch2)7 coo ch3 22.37 23.5 21.2 22.98±2.01 linoleic ch3(ch2)3(ch2ch= ch)2(ch2)7 coo ch3 56.15 53.6 52.5 54.51±1.54 linolenic ch3 (ch2ch= ch)3(ch2)7 coo ch3 5.80 6.3 7.5 7.23±0.78 a)present work, b) analysis results taken from (carvalh et al., 2012), c) analysis results taken from (carvalh et al., 2012) and d) analysis results taken from (hammond et al., 2005). 3.2 the methanol/wfo volume ratio influence one of the most important variables affecting the yield of ester is the molar ratio of alcohol to triglyceride (tg) (peterson& scarrah, 1984), and (schuchardi, sercheli & vargas, 1998). the stoichiometric ratio for transesterification requires 3 moles of alcohol and 1 mole of triglyceride to yield 3 moles of fatty acid ester and 1 mole of glycerol: wfo (tg) + 3 ch3oh è 3 fatty acid ester + 1 glycerol the molar ratio is associated with the type of catalyst used. the yield of the reactions is expressed as the mass of methyl esters produced per 100 g of wfo. the excess of methanol is introduced to ensure the accomplishment of the reaction. but, when considering the weight of methyl ester phase, it contains part of the excess methanol, resulting in more than 100% of crude yield (fatty acid ester + excess of methanol). (soulayman, mustafa & hadbah, 2012), used pure (merck gr) chemicals and found that at constant weight ratio of catalyst/wfo, after 2 h of reaction the yield increases directly with the excess of methanol up to methanol/wfo volume ratio of 18.17%. when repeating their experiment without removing the excess of methanol from the yield their statement was verified (see fig. 3). therefore, this kind of yield could be characterized as crude yield. the dependence of crude yield on methanol/wfo volume ratio, presented in fig.3, shows that, when excluding the sample with methanol/wfo volume ratio equals to 0.3 (for the oil sample with an acidic value of 0.52 mg koh/g at 0.004 mass ratio of catalyst/wfo) the crude yield of the reactions increases directly with the methanol content increase. therefore, citation: soulayman, s. and ola, d. (2019) synthesis parameters of biodiesel from frying oils wastes. int. journal of renewable energy development, 8(1), 33-39, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.8.1.33-39 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. 2019. all rights reserved 36 the crude yield was distilled in order to remove the excess of methanol. fig. 3 influence of the methanol/wfo volume ratio on the crude yield of biodiesel production for catalyst/wfo weight ratio of 0.00367(g/ml) without methanol excess distillation. when removing the excess of methanol from the crude yield, it was found that yield, before washing, was constant and equal to 95.73 whatever is the methanol/wfo volume ratio. after washing, the final yield becomes as shown in fig. 4 where it is seen that methanol/wfo volume ratio of 13% is the optimum value which leads to maximum real yield (95.09). the methanol/wfo volume ratio of 16% is also acceptable as it leads to yield of 94.45. fig. 4 influence of the methanol/wfo volume ratio on the yield of biodiesel production for weight catalyst/wfo ratio of 0.00367(g/ml) with methanol excess distillation and after washing. 3.2 the naoh/wfo mass ratio influence the amount of catalyst used in the process is another variable to take into account because it determines the reaction rate, and can cause hydrolysis and saponification. both reactions interfere with the separation of the glycerol rich phase and with the methyl esters purification. alkalicatalyzed transesterification is much faster than acidcatalyzed (freedman, pryde, & mounts, 1984). sodium hydroxide was chosen in the present work to catalyze the transesterifications because it is the cheapest one and is used widely in large-scale processing. soulayman, mustafa & hadbah, (2012), stated that, for a wfo with an acidity of 0.52 mg koh/g wfo and a reaction temperature of 60 oc, the optimal conditions to produce biodiesel by basic – catalyzed transesterification method using pure (merck, gr) chemicals are a methanol/wfo volume ratio of 18.17% and naoh/wfo weight ratio of 0.4 %. when repeating their experiment using commercial grade chemicals and primary vacuum pump additionally, it was found that, for the optimum methanol/wfo volume ratio of 13%, the catalyst quantity is of 0.4% of oil weight. this result is in a full agreement with that of soulayman, mustafa & hadbah, (2012). at value lower than 0.4%, the process became unstable. the yield varied by about 3%. at value higher than 0.4%, the yield decreases considerably (see table 3). tabel 3 the effect of naoh catalyst on wfo transesterification. naoh mass (g) crude yield (ml) yield after excess methanol removal (ml) yield after washing (ml) 1 304 300 290 1 315 300 295 1 300 297 289 1.1 306 300 298 1.1 307 301 294 1.1 308 300 295 1.2 300 297 285 1.2 298 294 282 1.2 299 294 283 used values are: 300ml wfo, 40 ml ch3oh, reaction time 2 h. it should be noted that, soaps formed during base catalyzed transesterification were eliminated by applying sulfuric acid after the transesterification completed. this procedure simplifies also the separation of the product phases and prevents the formation of emulsions if a water wash operation is used for the finished fuel. finally, the optimization data clearly demonstrated the evidence that the transesterification reaction can be accelerated by increasing the reaction temperature, and increasing the amount of base catalyst. for reactions occurring at atmospheric pressure, the temperature is limited by the boiling point of methanol (64.6°c), with the highest temperature used in this study being 60°c. increasing the amount of base catalyst will increase soap formation, but as noted previously, these soaps can be eliminated by using sulfuric acid in a second processing step. 3.3 the effect of reaction time when studying the influence of reaction time on the reaction productivity, it was found (see fig. 5) that the conversion rate increases with reaction time. moreover, the influence of reaction period is less important when period exceeds 75 minutes while it is very important at lower periods. fig. 5 the effect of reaction time on yield. 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 10 15 20 25 30 c ru de y ie ld r at io (% ) methanol/wfo (100*vol/vol) 92 93 94 95 96 10 20 30 ye ild r at io (% ) methanol/wfo (100*vol/vol) 90 92 94 96 98 100 102 0 30 60 90 120 yi el d ra ti o (% ) time (minutes) int. journal of renewable energy development 8 (1) 2019: 33-39 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. 2019. all rights reserved 37 however, the production scale and the economical feasibility give the main data for determining the suitable time reaction period from production point of view. under the condition of methanol to oil ratio of 6:1, 1% sodium hydroxide catalyst and 60oc, the refined soybean oil was transesterified (freedman, pryde, & mounts, 1984). after 1 h, the conversion rate was 94%. the result of the present work is in accordance with that of (freedman, pryde, & mounts, 1984). 3.5 biodiesel characterization in order to verify the quality of the biodiesel produced under different experimental conditions, the properties of the obtained biodiesel were compared with the specifications of the standard en 14214 (2003). so, several samples of biodiesel were submitted to a series of tests. table 4 gives the obtained results of some samples at more preferable conditions regarding esters concentration (%wet), density at 15 oc (g/cm3), kinematic viscosity at 40 oc (mm2/s) and iodine value (gi/100g) while table 5 gives the obtained results regarding acid value (mg koh/g), water content (% wt), sodium content (mg/kg), methanol content (% wet) and flash point (oc) of the produced biodiesel. the obtained results show that for all the studied conditions, the biodiesel produced in the present study has a density of 0.88 g/cm3. the methanol content in the produced samples was 0.002 (%wt) while the standard en 14214 (2003) allows the max value of 0.2 (%wt). table 4 some physical properties of the produced biodiesel. sample number esters concentration (%wet) density at 15 oc (g/cm3) cinematic viscosity at 40 oc (mm2/s) iodine value (gi/100g) 1 98.73 0.88 4.94 129.6 2 99.15 0.88 4.59 129.7 3 99.17 0.88 4.51 128.7 4 98.79 0.88 4.44 128.3 5 98.46 0.88 4.33 128.8 standards min. 96.5 0.86 – 0.9 3.5-5 less than 120 table 5 some other physical properties of the produced biodiesel. sample number acid value (mg koh/g) water content (%wet) sodium content (mg/kg) flash point (oc) 1 0.20 0.042 1.3 184 2 0.27 0.037 2.0 182 3 0.21 0.033 2.0 182 4 0.30 0.038 3.0 182 5 0.34 0.035 2.8 182 standards max. 0.5 max.0.05 max.5 >120 3.6 acid pre-treatment effectiveness acid pre-treatment is used to reduce free fatty acids ffa. in order to determine the influence of acid pre-treatment process on the crude yield this method was applied on wfo of different acid values. thus an acid-catalyzed pretreatment process before the base-catalyzed transesterification process was applied. in order to compare the influence of applying (1) basic – catalyzed transesterification and (2) acid pre-treatment basic – catalyzed transesterification processes on the biodiesel productivity, the above mentioned two processes were applied using the same experimental variables except adding h2so4 quantity.). table 6 the effect of acid pre-treatment on the crude yield. h2so4 (ml) biodiesel (ml) 0 308 0.3 296 0.6 298 1.0 302 used values are: 300ml wfo, 40 ml ch3oh, reaction time 2 h. acid value 0.52 the results are given in table 6. in this context, when repeating the same series of experiments with changing the wfo acid value, it was found that for wfo of acid value less than 1 the basic – catalyzed transesterification is preferable from industrial and economical point of view even it was recommended that 0.5 1.5% (based on the weight of free fatty acid in the oil) of pure (95-98%) sulphuric acid should be used as a catalyst (abdullah, hasan and yusoff, 2013) 4. pilot production unit most researchers have selected the cheapest and simplest technique of biodiesel production. others have applied the expensive methods once the untreated oil was used as feedstock of biodiesel. however, in commercial processes, highly refined vegetable oils, consisting primarily of triglycerides (tgs) and typically used as feedstocks, are transesterified with low molecular weight alcohols, e.g. methanol and ethanol, using homogeneous alkali catalysts (such as naoh and koh). to be more economically viable, the use of virgin oils accounting for 88% of the total estimated biodiesel production cost, could be replaced with a more economical feedstock, such as waste fats and oils that contain a low to moderate amount of free fatty acids (ffas), moisture and other impurities (ferreira, cardoso & da silva, 2012). even though, the economical impact is highly related to the biodiesel production technique. therefore, the quality of biodiesel should be taken into account when any of the techniques reported by (jain and sharma, 2010) is applied. it is due to the operational process may take place either with catalysts such as alkaline (meher, dharmagadda & naik, 2006), acid, (lotero et al.. 2005), and enzyme (noureddini, gao and philkana, 2005, soumanou and bornscheuer, 2003), or citation: soulayman, s. and ola, d. (2019) synthesis parameters of biodiesel from frying oils wastes. int. journal of renewable energy development, 8(1), 33-39, doi.org/10.14710/ijred.8.1.33-39 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. 2019. all rights reserved 38 without catalysts (madras, kolluru and kumar, 2004). in an industrial scale, the alkaline catalyst is the most preferable way due to low cost, ease of installation and above all, its high reaction rate without requiring a large reactor volume and saving the production fixed capital (berrios, martín, chica and martín, 2010). the recent increase in the world biofuels demand, along with the need to reduce costs while improving the environmental sustainability of the biodiesel production, have led to the search for catalysts that should be economically viable, efficient, and environmentally friendly. in this context, a pilot production unit has been designed and constructed. this unit operates with wfo feedstock and commercial grade chemicals. fig. 1 describes the processing steps and methods used to produce biodiesel and pure glycerine from wfo with the production capacity of 400 l/day. the first main step in the used process is the chemical analysis of the weekly gathered quantity of wfo in order to determine the acid value of the free fatty acid content and to apply the suitable wfo pre-treatment. the acid value of the wfo was determined in order to estimate the free fatty acid content and give an idea of how much acid catalyst and methanol would be needed to push the acid esterification chemical towards methyl ester production. karmee, patria & lin, (2015), reported the economic analyses of the biodiesel production from waste cooking oil in hong kong with different catalysts using aspen plus as simulation tool. as the economic feasibility of the pilot unit is out of the frames of the present work some comments regarding wfo pretreatment and production results will be provided below. the detailed cost analysis of the pilot production unit will be given elsewhere. 4.1 wfo pre-treatment the pre-treatment stage in the pilot unit consist of solid particles removal and water separation always while the application of acid catalyzed pre-esterification depends on the wfo acid value. if acid value is less than 1.5, the acid esterification is not required. so, as the acid value of the used raw materials of wfo was less than 1 over three years of operation, the description of the pre-treatment stage will be restricted to particles removal and water separation. 4.2 production conditions the biodiesel production capacity is 400 l/day. the reaction conditions are kept in optimum conditions, such as the reaction temperature at 60 °c. the volume ratio of methanol to wfo was 13% and mass ratio of naoh to wfo is 0.4%. the reaction time was 2 h. as the acid value of the used wfo is always less than 1 the acid pretreatment is not required. in these optimum conditions the biodiesel conversion is 100% approximately. the daily obtained results with regards to local prices of 2012 demonstrate the economical feasibility of continuous pilot biodiesel production. 4.3 production results in the pretreatment process, the solid particles removal is provided manually where the same container plays the role of decanter to separate the wfo from the water while the rest moisture removal is provided under primary vacuum in heater with a mixing ratio of 200rpm. the suitable quantities of methanol and catalyst naoh are reacted to produce methoxide in a special reactor with a mixing ratio of 200 rpm. the pre-treated wfo as well as the produced methoxide are then transferred into the reactor with a mixing ratio of 800rpm in which the wfo will be transesterified with methoxide. the reaction mixture of this process is decanted in a special decanter. the byproduct glycerol is filtered and transferred to a special decanter, leaving the biodiesel, base catalyst (naoh), and remaining glycerol in the filtrate which will be transferred into a distillation column with a mixing ratio of 800rpm for excess methanol distillation which in its turn transferred to the methanol storage while the rest is transferred to a special decanter with a mixing ratio of 200rpm for washing with water after adding some drops of h2so4. a stream of water and the filtrate are transferred into extraction column. the remaining methanol, koh, and remaining glycerol are extracted by water, while the biodiesel is separated. then the biodiesel is transferred into a distillation column with a mixing ratio of 800rpm to dry it by removing the remaining moisture. the obtained pure biodiesel is then stored in the biodiesel tank. on the other hand, all the remaining substances such as wfo, methanol, glycerol, and naoh in the reaction are transferred into a special reactor for the neutralization process where a suitable quantity of h2so4 is added. after 12 h of neutralization the remaining wfo is decanted; while the remaining methanol, glycerol and water are transferred into two separated distillation columns: one for extracting methanol and transferring it to the methanol storage while the other for water extraction. a suitable quantity of baco3 is added to the water-free and methanol-free glycerol for h2so4 removal. the obtained pure glycerol after filtration is then stored in a tank. 5. conclusion the present work allows achieve the following results: o the production of biodiesel from wfo is feasible by basic catalyzed transesterification. o the determined best working conditions for basic catalyzed transesterification biodiesel production from wfo as follows: primary vacuum pump pretreatment, 2h of reaction, a methanol/wfo volume ratio of 13% and a catalyst/wfo weight ratio of 0.4%. o a good agreement with available data is observed. o the realization of efficient separation/purification of methyl asters phase o the design and construction of biodiesel production educational pilot facility of 400l/day production capacity that meets the specifications of en 14214. 6. acknowledgments the authors wish to thank dr. r. jabra for useful discussions and english reviewing. references barzegarian, r., keshavarz moraveji, m. & aloueyan, a. (2016) experimental investigation on heat transfer characteristics and pressure drop of bphe (brazed plate heat exchanger) using tio2-water nanofluid. experimental thermal and fluid science, 74, 11-18. int. journal of renewable energy development 8 (1) 2019: 33-39 p a g e | © ijred – issn: 2252-4940. 2019. all rights reserved 39 behrangzadeh, a. & heyhat, m.m. (2016) the effect of using nano-silver dispersed water based nanofluid as a passive method for energy efficiency enhancement in a plate heat exchanger. applied thermal engineering, 102, 311-317. han, x.h., cui, l.q., chen, s.j., chen, g.m. & wang, q. (2010) a numerical and experimental study of chevron, corrugatedplate heat exchangers. international communications in heat and mass transfer, 37, 1008-1014. holman, j. p. (2001) experimental methods for engineers (7th edition). new york: mcgraw-hill. huang, d., wu, z. & sunden, b. 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(2017) heat transfer correlations for single-phase flow in plate heat exchangers based on experimental data. applied thermal engineering, 113, 15471557. international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023, 12 (4), 648-654 | 648 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.52532 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id investigating the potential of avocado seeds for bioethanol production: a study on boiled water delignification pretreatment herliati rahman* , ayu nehemia , hadiatun puji astuti department of chemical engineering, faculty of industrial technology, university of jayabaya, indonesia abstract. the increasing need for alternative fuels to replace fossil fuels has made bioethanol a promising option. although numerous sources of sugar generation and agricultural wastes can be converted into ethanol, avocado seeds (as) are particularly attractive as raw materials due to their abundance, high carbohydrate content, and lack of interactions with the food chain. therefore, this study investigated the potential of as for bioethanol production using several steps, including boiled water delignification pretreatment, catalytic hydrolysis, and fermentation with saccharomyces cerevisiae. the delignification pretreatment of as involved soaking in 4% (w/v) sodium hydroxide liquor for 24 hours. then the mixture was heated to 80°c and stirred slowly for 2.5 hours and after that washing with boiled water at 100 oc for 1.5 hours and screening the mixture. subsequently, catalytic hydrolysis and fermentation were carried out using two different concentrations of saccharomyces cerevisiae as yeast, namely 10% (w/v) and 15% (w/v). qualitative sample analysis was conducted using scanning electron microscopy (sem) to observe the effect of delignification pretreatment, while ftir analysis using thermo scientific nicolet is50 was used to test for glucose functional groups. quantitative analysis was performed using gas chromatography 7890b mass spectrophotometry 5977a, agilent dbvrx to determine hydrolysate fermentation. the results revealed that the highest ethanol yield was achieved through fermentation with 15% (w/v) yeast and 40% (v/v) catalyst, resulting in an ethanol yield of 83.755% of the theoretical maximum. keywords: agricultural waste; enzyme; fermentation; hydrolysis @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 16th feb 2023; revised: 14th april 2023; accepted: 20th may 2023; available online: 25th may 2023 1. introduction the global economy is in need of a transition towards more sustainable and environmentally friendly energy sources, as the reliance on fossil fuels remains high (deby et al., 2014; fadhil et al., 2017). therefore, biofuels are being considered as potential replacements for traditional fuels such as petrol, diesel, and aerostatic fuels (ahlgren et al., 2017; rahman herliati et al., 2018). simulation studies of the world energy systems predict that biofuels could contribute significantly, ranging from 10% to 40% of the market, in the long term, indicating a substantial increase in their utilization (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018). in indonesia, the production of biofuels at a competitive price is being explored to support the economic and energy security of the country (raza et al., 2021). several studies have considered biomass as the most promising renewable carbon source for biofuels (yu et al., 2020; zhao et al., 2009). the national research and innovation agency of indonesia predicts that new renewable energy, including biomass, will increase power and heat generation by 2035 (frankowski et al., 2022; rahman et al., 2019; sluiter et al., 2011). bioethanol, derived from fruit waste biomass such as avocado seeds, is a viable biofuel option (dong et al., 2019; frankowski et al., 2022; salehi et al., 2018). this biomass has several advantages, such as low cost, low dependence on the food chain, and colossal availability (risyad et al., 2016; * corresponding author email: herliati@jayabaya.ac.id (h. rahman) muhammad et al., 2020; mueansichai et al., 2022). according to the central bureau of statistics indonesia (bps), 307.3 tons of avocados were produced in indonesia in 2014 (marlina et al., 2018; sukaryo & sri subekti, 2017). the production rate continues to increase yearly, at a growth level of 24.48%, raising the number of avocado seeds (sukaryo & sri subekti, 2017). currently, avocado seeds are indiscriminately discharged into the environment, thereby leading to pollution (risyad et al., 2016; sluiter et al., 2011). however, there is growing interested in utilizing avocado seeds as a crucial biomass resource for bioethanol production, given their significant quantity and high cellulose content (baruah et al., 2018; paredes-sánchez et al., 2021). according to the food and agriculture organization (fao), avocado (persea americana) is a tropical or subtropical fruit native to south america and widely grown in asia (60%), including indonesia (hurtado-fernández et al., 2018; janice et al., 2018). the primary waste is avocado seeds, with a ratio of about 0.33 kg of seeds/kg of avocado (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018; ruiz et al., 2013). due to its availability and high cellulose content (baruah et al., 2018), [19], as is regarded as an expected raw material for bioethanol. the first step in ethanol manufacturing is the generation of glucose or simple sugars from biomass and avocado seeds (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018; ruiz et al., 2013). additionally, in 2004, werby and petersen stated that biomass can yield 12 research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.52532 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.52532 mailto:herliati@jayabaya.ac.id https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1319-6458 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1317-7378 https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7450-9296 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.52532&domain=pdf h. rahman et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 648-654 |649 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore building blocks of sugars through biochemical routes, further highlighting the potential of biomass as a renewable resource for ethanol production. the compositions of as are cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, forming a complex composition (janice et al., 2018). however, due to their high molecular weight, these components are challenging for microorganisms to efficiently digest into tinny molecular-weight sugars (krajang et al., 2021). lignin can prevent microorganisms from producing ethanol in subsequent processes. therefore, pretreatment of as is necessary to separate lignin and make carbohydrates more accessible for hydrolysis and fermentation (ghazanfar et al., 2022; sultan et al., 2022). this typically involves stages such as boiled water delignification and catalytic hydrolysis using liquor hcl, followed by fermentation, making it a promising area of study for bioethanol production. numerous studies have explored diverse biomass pretreatment methods for obtaining carbohydrate materials from agricultural residues (as). some of the methods examined are steam explosion (se) (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018; ruiz et al., 2013), enzymatic hydrolysis (zakaria et al., 2014), liquid hot water hydrolysis (pérez et al., 2008), and enzymatic hydrolysis combined with ultrasound (subhedar & gogate, 2013). previous researchers using steam explosion during biomass pretreatments to obtain specific sugar raw materials. however, some disadvantages of se include modifying the lignin compounds into chemicals by hemicellulose-derived sugars that can inhibit the following steps; and the prospect possibility of extractives breaking down during the pretreatment (chen et al., 2022). so, this study using boiled water (100oc) during the pretreatment which is more interesting from an ecological and economic perspective. this study chose hydrochloric acid as a catalyst for the hydrolysis stage due to its cost-effectiveness compared to other acids, such as phosphoric and sulfuric acid, which can increase production costs (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018; ruiz et al., 2006). furthermore, hydrochloric acid has been found to exhibit significant effectiveness in digesting the hemicellulose fraction in dilute concentrations (velmurugan & muthukumar, 2011). the use of liquor hydrochloric acid as a catalyst in the hydrolysis of as for obtaining some sugar has never been carried out in previous studies. treating all the pretreated biomass in subsequent steps of catalytic hydrolysis and fermentation is environmentally and economically beneficial. the concentration of lignocellulosic chemicals in the pretreated biomass tends to vary in accordance with factors such as biomass source, pretreatment parameters (duration and temperature), and the presence or absence of base cooking liquor (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018). in some studies, the slurry was filtered and washed, and then the solid cellulose-rich material was separated from the liquid phase. the liquid phase typically contains small amounts of acetic acid, hemicellulose, lignin, degraded carbohydrates, and other substances (subhedar & gogate, 2013; zakaria et al., 2014). preliminary studies stated that after biomass pretreatment, catalytic hydrolysis and fermentation should be carried out simultaneously in a single reactor (liu & dien, 2022). however, the fundamental drawback of the aforementioned step in comparison to a single hydrolysis-fermentation arrangement is that it is typically carried out at low operation temperatures, corresponding to the inefficient activity of cellulolytic enzymes. according to chen et al. (2022), performing saccharification as a separate step prior to in-situ hydrolysis-fermentation is an option, as it can lower the viscosity of the slurry at high substrate concentrations. the glucose in the biomasses can be improved by using a suitable microorganism (kim, 2018). according to ghazanfar et al. (2022), saccharomyces cerevisiae ferments glucose through hydrolysis. previous studies have shown that this yeast can produce high yields of ethanol from various biomass materials, achieving up to 0.24 g ethanol per gram of biomass (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018; ruiz et al., 2013; song et al., 2021). the primary objective of this study is to explore the production of next-generation bioethanol using as pretreated with bd, followed by the subsequent steps of hydrolysis and fermentation using saccharomyces cerevisiae. 2. materials and methods 2.1 raw materials preparation a total of 500 grams of avocado seeds sourced from cafes and restaurants in bogor, west java, indonesia, were thoroughly washed to remove impurities. the seeds were sliced into thin pieces and dried in an oven at 105°c for 24 hours (fülöp & ecker, 2020). additionally, the oven-dried seeds were ground in a laboratory hammer mill using a herzog grinding device, and then sieved to a pass size of 50 mesh before being stored at room temperature. the moisture content and raw material composition of the prepared avocado seeds were determined using the standard technique of the national renewable energy laboratory (nrel) (sluiter et al., 2011). the prepared raw material is shown in figure 1. 2.2 experimental process the experimental process started with weighing 100 grams of asp, which was then mixed with 150 ml of 4% naoh solution and 1350 ml of distilled water and soaking for 24 hours. the mixture was heated to 80°c and stirred slowly for 2.5 hours. afterward, it was filtered and rinsed with boiled water at 100°c to remove the lignin content. the filtered solids were then dried in an oven at 105°c for 24 hours to obtain dried asp, which was characterized using sem with an olympus type quanta 650. another part of the experiment involved the hydrolysis of avocado seeds that were previously treated to remove lignin (chhouk et al., 2017). the hydrolysis reaction was carried out in a 500 ml reaction vessel at 60°c, using 10 g of asp, 100 ml of 30% and 40% hcl solutions. once the hydrolysis reaction was completed in about an hour, the resulting output, which contained high sugar concentration, was fig 1 avocado seed powder (asp) preparation h. rahman et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 648-654 |650 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore transferred to a fermenter. saccharomyces cerevisiae (ss) yeast was used for fermentation, with two different concentrations of ss, 10% and 15%, along with additional nutrients such as ammonium sulfate and urea as a nitrogen source (co(nh₂)₂) to support microorganism growth. the overall experimental steps are shown in figure 2. 2.3 testing methods the nrel laboratory analytical process, was employed in this study to quantify the amount of lignin and carbohydrates in biomass (sluiter et al., 2011). ftir was utilized to analyze organic molecules within the ir range of 4000 cm-1400 cm-1, specifically focusing on the structure and functional groups of glucose analytes. the ftir instrument used in this study was thermo scientific nicolet is50, equipped with a multi-coated, conical-shaped germanium tip crystal with a 350-micron spherical finish, a single reflection, throughput > 50%, and a 27° average angle. it also featured an atr (attenuated total reflectance) detector with a liquid nitrogen-cooled mct-a detector (fülöp & ecker, 2020). 2.4 microorganism and growth conditions this study was carried out using ss, a bacterium known for its ability to ferment glucose (mishra et al., 2016). one gram of each sample was diluted in buffered saline and plated on tributyrin agar (tba) plates in 100 μl aliquots. the tba plates were composed of 0.5% peptones, 0.3% yeast extract, 1% agar, and 0.1 ml tributyrin, with the ph adjusted to 5.5. prior to use, tributyrin was sterilized through membrane filtration and the filtrate was added to the basic growth medium. after 24 hours of incubation at 30°c, each colony was selected and streaked to obtain pure cultures (godoy et al.,2018). 2.5 characteristics of the fermentation the experiments were conducted in duplicate using 500-ml fermenters made of glassware equipment from pyrex, germany, with a working volume of 250 ml. the initial substrate concentration of yeast was set at 10% (w/v) and 15% (w/v) for different trials. in addition, the ph of the substrate was adjusted from 4 to 5. temperature, rpm and ph were the only parameters that were set and controlled for each fermentation. periodic monitoring and analysis were carried out by examining 1 ml samples from the fermenters. prior to analysis using gc-ms, the samples were prepared according to the established protocol. 2.6 yields calculation the yield from hydrolysis was calculated using equation (1) and is expressed as g glucose per 100 g carbohydrate present in the original material (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018): % 𝒀𝒊𝒆𝒍𝒅 = (𝑮−𝑮𝟎) 𝒙 𝟎.𝟎𝟑𝒙𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝑪 𝒙 𝟏𝟎𝟎 (1) where [g], [g]0, [c] and [0.03] denote the quantity of glucose produced by the reaction, the amount of glucose in the feed raw material, the amount of carbohydrate presents in 100 g of the original material, and the amount of catalyst at 4% (w/v), respectively. fermentation yields were determined using equation (2) (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018): % 𝒀𝒊𝒆𝒍𝒅 = [𝑬] [𝑮]+[𝑪] 𝒙 𝟏𝟎𝟎 (2) where [g] and [c] are the substrate's starting concentrations of glucose and cellulose (mg/ml), and [e] is the concentration of ethanol in the fermentation broth (mg/ml) (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018). 3. results dan discussion 3.1 samples composition and bd-pretreatment table 1 shows the carbohydrate and lignin content of the as used, which exhibit slight variations from other studies due to fig 2 study flowchart for bioethanol production from as h. rahman et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 648-654 |651 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore factors such as diverse growing locations, farming practices, and analytical procedures (ifesan et al., 2015). according to ftir analysis, the dry as showed a total carbohydrate percentage of over 50%. however, some organic chemicals and trace elements, such as starches, resins, and gums, present in smaller concentrations, were not examined (acevedo-garcía et al., 2018). this study is comparable to those described by preliminary studies (ji et al., 2022; liu & dien, 2022; pérez et al., 2008), where the percentages for carbs and lignin ranged from 50 to 75% and 17 to 20%, respectively. this carbohydrate composition indicates that as is a potential material for bioethanol production (ji et al., 2022). however, the lignin fractions in as may hinder converting sugars to bioethanol, which can be alleviated through boiled water lignification pretreatment. figure 3 shows the impact of bd pretreatment on the lignin content, as observed through sem micrograph images. based on the micrograph image, at magnifications of 1000x (figure 3a) and 5000x (figure 3b), as samples without pretreatment showed less cracks or pores in the lignin matrices. however, samples subjected to bd pretreatment figures 3c and 3d at magnificent of 100x and 5000x, exhibited more cracks or pores within the lignin matrices. this result indicates a reduction in the lignin fraction, primarily due to the base solution of sodium hydroxide and thermally degradable lignin (ji et al., 2022). 3.2 hydrolysis after the delignification stage, the filtrate was subjected to hydrolysis by adding hydrochloric acid (hcl) in a ratio of 2:1 to carbohydrates. the mixture was stirred using a magnetic stirrer and heated at 60°c for 2.5 hours. two different concentrations of hcl, 30% and 40% (v/v), were used as catalysts to accelerate the hydrolysis reaction rate. the hydrolysis reaction was carried out in excess water to ensure a pseudo-first order reaction, where changes in carbohydrate concentration determine the reaction rate. at the end of the hydrolysis reaction, the resulting mixture was cooled to room temperature, filtered, and the filtrate, rich in glucose, was used as the feed for the fermentation process. prior to fermentation, the filtrate was pasteurized at 70°c for 15 minutes and adjusted to ph 5 as required. different concentrations of solid substrate (ss), 10% (w/v) and 15% (w/v), were added to each sample, and then the samples were incubated at 30°c for 4 to 6 days in a tightly closed environment to allow anaerobic fermentation. the results of the reaction were analyzed using a refractometer, and table 2 shows that the glucose content in the hydrolyzed samples using 30% and table 1 composition of as (n=3 ± sd) compounds % dry weight carbohydrate 54.85 ± 0.74 lignin 19.32 ± 1.20 fig 3 sem analysis of as without bd (3a, 3b) and with bd pretreatment (3c, 3d) table 2 analysis of hydrolysate from pretreatment of as (n=3 ± sd) catalyst concentration glucose (% brix) hcl 30 % 27.5 ± 0.05 hcl 40 % 29.5 ± 0.05 h. rahman et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 648-654 |652 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 40% hcl were 27.5% and 29.5% brix, respectively. this result indicates that the hydrolysis process to convert carbohydrates into glucose has been successful. in addition, the functional groups of glucose were analyzed using ftir analysis with a thermo scientific nicolet is50 type. the wave number range for glucose functional groups was determined to be between 2500-4000 cm-1, which includes three main functional groups, namely c-h, n-h and o-h with wave numbers of 2800-3000 cm-1, 3300-3600 cm-1, and 3300-3600 cm1, respectively. even though n-h and o-h groups have similar wave numbers, both can be differentiated by their spectral shapes. a widened and halved spectral shape characterized the n-h group, while the o-h group also has a broadened but not halved spectral form. in addition, the wave numbers 2200 cm-1, 2100 cm-1 and 1600-1800 cm-1 are in c≡n, c≡c and three functional groups, namely c=o, c= c, and c=n (r et al., 2017; yu et al., 2020). figure 4 shows the spectrum of glucose, confirming its presence in the hydrolysate with a molecular formula of c6h12o6, indicated by a single broad-spectrum alcohol functional group (o-h) at a wave number of 3340.79 cm1. therefore, the test results shown in figure 4 confirm that the hydrolysate contains the dominant glucose. 3.3 fermentation of hydrolysate the fermentation of glucose in the hydrolysate is the subsequent process after catalytic hydrolysis. in this study, the effect of substrate concentration on the fermentation reaction was investigated using saccharomyces cerevisiae at concentrations of 10% and 15% (w/v). s. cerevisiae is an acidophilic microbe that thrives at a maximum ph of 5 (rahman et al., 2018). therefore, fermentation was carried out under acidic conditions with a ph range of 4-5. analysis of the fermentation results indicated that a slightly higher ethanol content was obtained at a substrate concentration of 15% (w/v) compared to 10% (w/v). the fermented ethanol was subsequently separated by distillation and analyzed to determine the ethanol content obtained. table 3 revealed that the highest bioethanol content of 83.755% was achieved at a concentration of 10% substrate with a fermentation time of 6 days. in contrast, the bioethanol content at a substrate concentration of 10% was lower than that of the 15% substrate. this observation is attributed to the low initial yeast population, which was unable to optimally break down the available glucose into alcohol due to an insufficient number of cells proportional to the medium used, resulting in an extended lag phase (tan et al., 2019). additionally, temperature played a critical role in ethanol production, as it influenced the yeast growth rate. when the temperature is too high, above 37 oc, it can cause the deactivation of the yeast itself. since the fermentation reaction is exothermic, the heat released must be controlled using a cooling system (mishra et al., 2016). quantitative testing of fermented ethanol content using gcms was carried out by injecting the sample using a syringe into the injector. the sample was then evaporated and carried by the carrier gas to the separation column, where an interaction occurs between the mobile and stationary phases. each component in a mixture interacts at a different rate depending on the volatility of that compound. the most volatile component interacts the fastest with the stationary phase, exiting the column first, followed by the other, heavier components. each component is bombarded with electrons through the ionizing chamber resulting in ionization. the ion fragments are then received by the detector and displayed as a mass spectrum, as shown in figures 5 and 6, which depict the ethanol chromatogram from the fermentation. the chromatograms indicate that the ethanol yield was slightly higher at 15% ss concentration compared to 10% ss, as seen from the area of the chromatogram. however, these results are also better than those reported by other researchers who investigated different biomass and fermentation bacteria, such as olive tree pruning fig 4 ftir spectrum of glucose table 3 ethanol yield analysis (n=3±sd) reaction time (day) ss concentration (%) 10 15 4 83.145±2.0275 83.320±0.2748 6 84.345±0.8154 83.755±0.0686 h. rahman et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 648-654 |653 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore by e-coli, which achieved 72-82% of the theoretical maximum (ruiz et al., 2006). 4. conclusions in conclusion, this study examined the feasibility of producing bioethanol from avocado seeds through a series of tests. the result showed that avocado seeds are a promising raw material for next-generation ethanol production due to their high sugar content. the study employed boiled water delignification pretreatment of the avocado seeds prior to hydrolysis and fermentation, which allowed for the extraction of lignin from the raw material in subsequent steps. the maximum bioethanol yield from the hydrolysate was found to be 83.755% when compared to the theoretical yield. acknowledgments the authors are grateful to the university of indonesia for providing the testing laboratory facilities needed to carry out this study. funding: thanks to the faculty of industrial technology, jayabaya university, this paper was completed through study funds with contract number: 71.004/kontrak penelitian/fti-uj/xii/2022. conflicts of interest: the authors declare no conflicts of interest to report regarding the present study. references acevedo-garcía, v., padilla-rascón, c., díaz, m. j., moya, m., & castro, e. 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(2009). organosolv pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for enzymatic hydrolysis. applied microbiology and biotechnology, 82(5), 815–827. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-009-1883-1. © 2023. the author(s). this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution-sharealike 4.0 (cc by-sa) international license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) https://doi.org/10.1042/ebc20200160 https://doi.org/10.5897/ajps2017.1625 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40643-022-00530-6 http://jurnal.untad.ac.id/jurnal/index.php/jak/article/view/11940 http://jurnal.untad.ac.id/jurnal/index.php/jak/article/view/11940 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13068-021-01903-3 https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/7853935 https://ejournal.poltektedc.ac.id/index.php/tedc/article/view/128 https://ejournal.poltektedc.ac.id/index.php/tedc/article/view/128 https://doi.org/10.1039/c6ra00007j https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2022.43740 https://doi.org/10.3390/en15010232 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2008.06.009 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5086606 https://doi.org/10.31479/jtek.v6i1.1 https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212813 https://doi.org/10.32734/jtk.v5i1.1522 https://doi:10.1016/j.procbio.2005.07.007 https://cigrjournal.org/index.php/ejounral/article/view/4821 https://doi.org/10.2225/vol16-issue3-fulltext-7 https://doi.org/10.2225/vol16-issue3-fulltext-7 http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/analytical_procedures.html https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.110370 https://doi.org/10.1021/ie401286z https://doi.org/10.34044/j.anres.2022.56.2.07 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bcab.2019.101293 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2011.04.045 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2019.122914 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-014-0964-5 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-009-1883-1 international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023, 12 (3), 627-634 | 627 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.52775 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id modeling anaerobic co-digestion of water hyacinth with ruminal slaughterhouse waste for first order, modified gompertz and logistic kinetic models erick auma omondi1* , peter kuria ndiba1, gloria koech chepkoech2, arnold aluda kegode3 1 department of civil and construction engineering, university of nairobi; p.o. box 10344-00100 nairobi, kenya. 2 department of civil and construction engineering, jomo kenyatta university of agriculture and technology; p.o. box 62000 (00200), nairobi, kenya. 3 department of civil & structural engineering, moi university; p.o box 3900-30100, eldoret, kenya. abstract. water hyacinth (eichhornia crassipes), an invasive aquatic weed with large biomass production is of socio-economic and environmental concern in fresh water bodies such as the lake victoria in east africa. efforts towards its control and removal can be complemented by biogas production for use as energy source. the co-digestion of water hyacinth (wh) with ruminal slaughterhouse waste (rsw) has the potential to improve biogas production from wh through collation of processes parameters such as the c/n and c/p ratios, potassium concentration and buffering capacity. knowledge of optimum proportion of the rsw as the minor substrate is of both process and operational importance. moreover, efficient operation of the process requires an understanding of the relationship between the biogas production and the process parameters. kinetic models can be useful tools for describing the biogas production process in batch reactors. while the first order kinetics models assume that the rate of biogas production is proportional to the concentration of the remaining substrates, other models such as the modified gompertz and the logistic models incorporate the lag phase, a key feature of the anaerobic digestion process. this study aimed to establish the optimum proportion of rsw in codigestion with wh under mesophilic conditions, and apply kinetics models to describe the biogas production. the study conducted batch co-digestion of wh with 0, 10, 20 and 30% rsw proportions at mesophilic temperature of 32ºc. co-digestion of wh with 30% rsw proportion improved biogas yield by 113% from 19.15 to 40.85 ch4 ml/(gvs) at 50 days of co-digestion. it also exhibited the most stable daily biogas production and the largest biogas yield. the biomethanation data were fitted with the first order kinetics, modified gompertz and the logistic models. biogas production for codigestion of wh with 30% rsw proportion was best described by the modified gompertz model with a biogas yield potential, mo, of 43.2 ml (gvs)1d-1; maximum biogas production rate, rm, of 1.50 ml (gvs)-1d-1; and duration of lag, λ, of 3.89 d. keywords: kinetics, modified gompertz model, logistic model, first order kinetic model, anaerobic digestion @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 27th feb 2023; revised: 18th april 2023; accepted: 4th may 2023; available online: 15th may 2023 1. introduction global concerns over depletion of fossil fuel sources coupled with the need to reduce greenhouse effects necessitates the search for unconventional energy sources such as waste biomass. production of biofuel from waste biomass would also double up as a sustainable waste management strategy for the biomas (mmusi et al., 2021). accordingly, there is increased interest in production of biofuels such as biogas, biodiesel and bioethanol that are relatively cheap, renewable and eco-friendly (ehiri et al., 2014). on the other hand water hyacinth (wh), a highly reproductive aquatic weed with a doubling period of 7 to 12 days (degaga, 2018), is of environmental concern because its high density hinders penetration of light into water bodies adversely affecting the aquatic life (mironga et al., 2012). it also interferes with the use of water bodies for transportation (honlah et al., 2019). harvesting of the plant for use as a feedstock in biogas production can reduce the associated environmental challenges and generate relatively cheap and * corresponding author email: omorric@gmail.com (a. samour) renewable energy. moreover, because the water hycinth grows on water, it does not compete with crops for agricultural land (bett, 2012). anaerobic digestion of wh alone suffers from process instability and limiting substrate composition and nutrient imbalance. for example, the wh large concentrations of cellulose, hemicellulose and carbohydrates and lesser concentration of lignin (omondi et al., 2019a) does not sufficiently buffer the ph during the acidogenic stage (omondi et al., 2019b) leading to acidic ph that cause prolonged lag phase. moreover, the wh carbon and nitrogen concentrations of 15,480 ± 350 and 1,650 ± 60 mg/kg, respectively result in a c/n ratio of 9.38 (omondi et al., 2019a), which is at the lower limit of the 8-20 optimal range for biogas production., which makes mono-digestion of wh susceptible to ammonia toxicity (kossman et al., 2007). previous studies showed co-digestion of wh with other substrates such as slaughterhouse waste stabilized the digestion research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.52775 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.52775 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.52775 mailto:omorric@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5716-2341 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.52775&domain=pdf omondi et al. int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 627-634 |628 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore process and increased biogas production (omondi et al., 2019b). however, most of the slaughterhouse waste components with the exception of ruminal slaughterhouse waste (rsw), have large concentrations of proteins that make the digestion process susceptible to ammonia toxicity (chen et al., 2008). the rsw is characterized by c/n ratio of 18.75 (omondi et al., 2009a), that is the higher limit that can affect anaerobic digestion (ad) process through nitrogen deficiency. co-digestion of wh with rsw as a minor substrate can potentially balance the c/n ratio for wh, to an optimal level and improve biogas production. biogas production in batch systems is affected by the type and characteristics of biomass, nutrient availability, and the biodigester conditions such as ph and temperature (nguyen et al., 2021). the anaerobic digestion process is commonly characterized by instabilities from feedstock overload, presence of inhibitors and temperature fluctuations (gavala et al., 2003; rabii et al., 2019). consequently, the design of efficient biogas generation system requires an understanding of the relationships between biogas production process, substrate characteristics and biodigester conditions. kinetic models can be useful tools for describing these relationships. kinetic models are developed for specific objectives that may include the establishment of process parameters, process simulation, optimization, and control (kim et al., 2018; oyaro et al., 2021). consequently, the models can be applied to observe, predict, simulate, and optimize the system kinetics or mechanisms at different operation conditions (de oliveira, 2016; pramanik et al., 2019). historically, development of kinetic models was substrate specific with the aim of simulating the kinetics of substrate degradation and biogas production (momodu et al., 2021; wang et al., 2022). presently, the development and study of kinetics of biodegradation primarily considers digestion parameters such as microbial growth rate, substrate utilization rate, bio-kinetic coefficients, and growth constants (borja et al., 2003; nguyen et al., 2021; hadiyanto et al 2023). fitting experimental data with kinetic models can assist estimate process parameters such as the initial conditions, stoichiometry, and kinetic parameters. the first order kinetic model has previously been adopted in batch tests for modelling the rate of hydrolysis (feng et al., 2017; pramanik et al., 2019). however, the model is not well suited for describing the acclimatization processes that exhibit a lag in biogas production (hassan et al., 2022). the lag phase is associated with the rapid acidogenic and acetogenic stages (momodu & adepoju, 2011; lafratta et al., 2021) that depress the ph before development of sufficient methane formers to consume the acids (omondi et al., 2020). to overcome this challenge and to describe substrate consumption under the ad process, other kinetic models such as the modified gompertz and the logistic models include the duration of the lag phase. the logistics model assumes that the rate of biomethanation is proportional to the size of the microbial population as indicated by biogas production rate, and the concentration of digestible substrate that is indicated by the maximum biogas yield potential (rabii et al., 2019). the modified gompertz model, on the other hand, assumes that the rate of biomethanation is proportional to the microbial activity; however, the proportionality decreases with the solids retention time, which can be interpreted as loss of the efficiency of substrate conversion with time (donoso-bravo et al., 2010). the modified gompertz model is one of the most utilized models for the anaerobic digestion process. donoso-bravo et al. (2010) and nguyen et al. (2016) found that the model closely correlated biogas production with four biochemical reaction parameters; namely, biogas yield potential mo, maximum biogas production rate rm, methane production rate constant k, and the duration of lag λ. other kinetic studies under mesophilic conditions have recommended the use of the modified gompertz equation for design of continuous stirred tank reactor (cstr) in digestion of organic wastes originating from pulp and paper industries, food processing industries and wastewater treatment plants (linke, 2006; bakraoui et al., 2019). however, the model is associated with several drawbacks that affect the prediction of methane production (zhu et al., 2019). for example, donoso-bravo et al. (2010) found that the model tends to give higher values for negative lag phase without an objective biological explanation. similarly, li et al. (2019) observed that the model was prone to errors where substrate to inoculum ratio (s/i) exceeded 0.7. this study evaluated the biogas production for various proportions of rsw in co-digestion with wh in a single-stage batch reactor. it then compared the application of three kinetic models; namely, first order kinetic, modified gompertz, and the logistic models in describing the experimental data. 2. materials and methods 2.1 overview of methods co-digestion of wh with various proportions of rsw was conducted in a single stage batch reactor. the biogas output was measured by displacement method. biomethanation was carried out for a retention time of 60 days in a controlled mesophilic condition of 32ºc. cumulative biogas production, slurry temperatures and ph were monitored throughout the study. fig. 1 shows the schematic of the substrate preparation and biogas production and collection 2.2 sample collection and preparation of substrates water hyacinth samples were obtained from the shores of winam gulf in lake victoria, kisumu city, in kenya at coordinates 0° 5’39.71” s, 34045’2.44” e. the ruminal slaughterhouse waste was obtained from the nairobi dagoretti slaughterhouse at coordinates 1°17'3.71" s, 36°41'1.98" e. sampling for wh selected fresh, healthy and mature plants that were then transported in sampling bags to the laboratory awaiting substrate preparation. similarly, rsw was transported in plastic sample buckets. whole wh plants including leaves, fig. 1. schematic of the experimental procedure omondi et al. int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 627-634 |629 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore stems and roots, were cut into small sizes of about 2 cm and dried under the sun for a period of 7 days for ease of storage and handling. the sun-dried wh was ground to fine particles by the use of mortar and pestle to form feedstock that was placed in plastic bags and stored in a refrigerator at 4°c. similarly, fresh rsw was dried in the sun for a period of 3 days. the dried samples were kept in plastic bags and stored for biogas production as a co-substrate. 2.3 biomethanation experimental set-up the biomethanation set-up comprised four sets of batch test apparatus. each set consisted of a constant temperature water bath, a digester, an alkaline scrubber solution chamber, a water displacement chamber and a graduated cylinder for collection of the water displaced by the gas (fig. 2). the digester comprised a two neck round bottom flask. one neck was used as an inlet for the substrate and the other one as the gas outlet. after feeding the substrate, the inlet was sealed for the duration of the test. the second chamber comprised a 1,000 ml cylindrical vessel with a gas inlet pipe immersed in an alkaline scrubber solution for co2 and other minor gases. the solution was prepared from 1 molar sodium hydroxide solution containing 40 g sodium hydroxide per 1 l of water. three drops of phenolphthalein indicator were added for monitoring ph variation; the scrubber solution was replaced when the pink/violet color of the indicator turned colorless. the scrubber solution chamber was fitted with a methane gas outlet pipe leading to a 1,000 ml water displacement chamber that was covered with an aluminum foil to prevent loss of water by evaporation. the final unit consisted of a 1,000 ml graduated cylinder for measurement of the volume of water displaced by the gas. 2.4 anaerobic digestion tests batch anaerobic digestion tests were conducted for codigestion of wh with 0, 10, 20 and 30% rsw proportions at a mesophilic temperature of 32ºc. biomass, 150 g, was fed into each reactor and the biomethanation monitored for 60 days. the mix proportions were prepared on the basis of weight/weight of the substrates as illustrated in table 1. daily biogas production was recorded as the volume of water displaced by the scrubbed gas and converted to biogas yield per gram of volatile solids. 2.5. biomethanation kinetics and data analysis the growth functions for anaerobic co-digestion of wh with rsw were fitted with models by the use of non-linear regression analysis curve-fitting tool in ibm spss software. the tool computed the correlation coefficient r2. it also computed the root mean square error (rmse) of the differences between the predicted values and the experiment data as expressed in equation 1. rmse = √ ∑ (𝑃𝑖−𝑂𝑖) 2𝑛 𝑖=1 𝑛 (1) where; pi is the model result, oi is the experimental result and n is the number of data. the studied kinetic models; namely, first order kinetic, modified gompertz and logistic models have previously been used to describe the kinetic methane production for codigestion of sewage sludge with food waste (sulaiman & seswoya, 2012); water hyacinth with poultry liter (patil et al., fig. 2. biomethanation experimental set-up table 1 mix proportions of dried substrates digester water hyacinth (g) slaughter-house waste (g) percent of co-substrate (%) rsw-0 150 nil 0 rsw-10 135 15 10 rsw-20 120 30 20 rsw-30 105 45 30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/phenolphthalein omondi et al. int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 627-634 |630 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 2012); water hyacinth with poultry liter, cow manure and primary sludge (adiga et al., 2012); banana peels with poultry manure (nwosu-obieogu et al., 2020); and different agricultural wastes (zhang et al., 2021). the models are expressed in equations 2, 3 and 4. first order : 𝑀 = 𝑀𝑜 (1 − 𝑒𝑥𝑝(−𝑘𝑡)) (2) modified gompertz: 𝑀 = 𝑀𝑜. exp { −𝑒𝑥𝑝 [ 𝑅𝑚.𝑒 𝑀𝑜 (𝜆 − 𝑡) + 1]}(3) modified logistic: 𝑀 = 𝑀𝑜 { 1+𝑒𝑥𝑝[ 4𝑅𝑚 𝑀𝑜 +(𝑡−𝜆)+2]} (4) where: m is the cumulative biogas production, in ml (gvs) -1 at any time t in days, mo is the biogas yield potential in ml (gvs) -1, rm is the maximum biogas production rate in ml (gvs) -1, k is the first order model constant in l/day, λ is the duration of lag phase in days, e is euler’s constant (2.7183), and k is the methane production rate constant in day-1. 3. results and discussions the following sub-sections present the daily and cumulative biogas production for co-digestion of wh with 0, 10, 20 and 30% rsw proportions, compare the first order kinetics, modified gompertz and logistic models fitting of the experimental data and establish the kinetic parameters. 3.1 experimental methane yield the four studied combinations of wh and rsw substrates; namely, wh with 0, 10, 20 and 30% rsw proportions exhibited biogas production with a lag between day 3 and day 10. it was followed by rapid gas production up to day 20 to day 30 and after which there was a gradual decline to almost zero production after day 49 to day 53 (fig. 3). biogas production for wh alone (0% rsw) was characterized by large fluctuation with nil productions on some days including after the lag period. the instability was attributed to large concentration of carbohydrates, cellulose and hemicellulose in wh biomass without corresponding concentration of lignin (omondi et al., 2019a) that can cause a mismatch of hydrolysis and acidogenesis on one hand and biomethanation on the other. introduction of the lignin rich rsw (omondi et al., 2019a) in proportions of 10, 20 and 30% as co-substrates progressively stabilized the biogas production. the 30% rsw proportion substrate demonstrated the most stable production throughout the digestion period. previous work by omondi et al. (2019b), indicated no significant improvement of the cumulative production beyond the 30% rsw proportion. the cumulative biogas production of the studied substrates combinations (fig. 4) exhibited an initial fast biogas production up to day 3 followed by a lag period of up to about day 10. the lag period is associated with acidification of the substrate during the acidogenic process, which affects the subsequent methanogenesis process. co-digestion of the wh with rsw is considered to reduce the acidification by buffering the ph. the 30% rsw proportion substrate exhibited the shortest lag period and also the largest overall biogas yield. 3.2 analysis of kinetics data the fitting of the experimental biogas gas production data with kinetics models was by the ibm spss software, which searched for biogas yield potential (mo), and the first order reactions constant (k) for the first order kinetic model at the minimum residual sum of squares (rmse) and their 95% confidence fig. 3. daily methane gas production for a) wh-0% rsw, and b) 10% rsw, c) 20% rsw and d) 30% rsw at 32ºc 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 a) duration (days) d a il y c h 4 m l/ (g v s ) 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 b) duration (days) d a il y c h 4 m l/ (g v s ) 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 c) duration (days) d a il y c h 4 m l/ (g v s ) 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 d) duration (days) d a il y c h 4 m l/ (g v s ) omondi et al. int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 627-634 |631 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore (table 2). for the modified gompertz and logistic models, the software searched for biogas yield potential (mo), maximum biogas production rate (rm), and duration of lag phase (λ). fitting of the models with the experimental results generated correlation coefficient, r2, values for cumulative methane yields. the fitted curves for first order kinetics, modified gompertz and logistic models for different substrate mixes are illustrated in fig. 5. the curves obtained by the modified gompertz and logistic models closely related with experimental curves with a typical s-shape signifying a relatively slow upward trend (lag phase) followed by a steady biomethanation. however, the curve for first order kinetic model did not depict the s-curve shape. additionally, it had a large departure from the experimental data as also confirmed by rmse values that were 2 orders of magnitude greater than those for the other two models (table 2). 3.3. discussions the largest biogas yield potential for the tested substrates was achieved for the 30% rsw substrate at 43.2 ml/(gvs) while the least was obtained for the 0% rsw at 19.7 ml/(gvs). the results show a 136% increase in biogas production for wh following co-digestion with ruminal slaughterhouse waste. the increase was attributed to synergies in the co-digestion of wh with rsw (omondi et al., 2019b). all the three studied kinetic models showed that the 20% rsw substrate achieved the highest maximum biogas production rate and the 30% rsw substrate the largest maximum biogas yield potential. both the gompertz and the logistic models described the lag phase whereby the 20% rsw had longer lag duration of 6.88 d compared to 5.04 d for 30% rsw. the longer lag duration for the 20% rsw substrate compared to the 30% rsw suggested a limited capacity of the 20% rsw substrate to buffer the ph coupled with slower development of methane formers (omondi et al., 2019b). the highest biogas production rate (rm) of 1.606 ml/(gvsd) was observed for the 20% rsw substrate compared with the lowest rate of 0.738 ml/(gvsd) for wh alone and 1.496 ml/(gvsd) for 30% rsw. the result suggested that the 20% substrate offered the optimum combination of process parameters for biomethanation after the lag phase. however, the maximum biomethanation rate could not be sustained with table 2 methane production kinetic parameters for first order kinetic, modified gompertz and logistic models substrate maximum biogas yield (m), l (gvs)-1 model parameters r2 rmse mo, ml (gvs)-1 k, rm (d-1), ml (gvs)-1d-1 λ d (a) first order kinetic model (m, mo, k) wh 18.89 20.52 0.988 n/a 0.977 2.087 10%rsw 25.59 27.41 0.970 n/a 0.971 2.283 20%rsw 35.35 38.75 0.988 n/a 0.963 5.942 30%rsw 40.66 44.37 0.992 n/a 0.983 3.363 (b) modified gompertz model (m, mo, rm, λ) wh 18.89 19.67 0.738 3.912 0.994 0.017 10%rsw 25.59 25.69 1.218 4.100 0.997 0.020 20%rsw 35.35 36.05 1.606 5.969 0.999 0.020 30%rsw 40.66 43.21 1.496 3.892 0.998 0.021 (c) logistic model (m, mo, rm, λ) wh 18.89 18.842 0.594 4.730 0.988 0.021 10%rsw 25.59 24.97 0.984 4.922 0.991 0.031 20%rsw 35.35 34.81 1.306 6.880 0.994 0.034 30%rsw 40.66 41.04 1.222 5.014 0.992 0.042 fig. 4. cumulative methane gas production for wh, 10, 20 and 30% rsw at 32ºc 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0% 10% 20% 30% duration (days) c u m m u la ti v e c h 4 m l/ (g v s ) omondi et al. int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 627-634 |632 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore the lesser rsw proportion, which could be caused by exhaustion of some key balancing ingredients such as the nutrients or lignin contributed by rsw. similar results were obtained for co-digestion of wh with cattle dung, which failed to sustain maximum rate of biomethanationbecause of exhaustion of complementary nutrients derived from the cattle dung. (ali et al., 2022). consequently, the substrate achieved a smaller biogas yield of 35.35 ml (gvs)-1 compared to 40.66 ml (gvs)-1 for the 30% rsw. theoretically, a continuous flow reactor may be designed to operate at the maximum biogas production rate (balmat et al., 2014; sarker et al., 2019). however, the operation would only occur over less than 13 days from day 10 to day 23 and would not consume all the prepared substrate (camacho et al., 2019). consequently, it would fail to achieve the maximum biogas yield as well as complete the waste management of wh by digestion. for the studied substrates, the maximum biogas yield increased by 115% from 18.89 to 40.66 ml (gvs)-1d-1 for 0 and 30% rsw proportions, respectively. consequently, co-digestion of wh with 30% rsw proportion provided the highest biogas production as well as the most effective digestion of wh as waste biomass. the modified gompertz model closely described the experimental data for the studied experimental substrates with correlation vectors (r2) of 0.994 0.999 compared to 0.988 0.994, and 0.963 0.983 for the logistic and first order kinetic models, respectively. these vectors demostrated that kinetic models closely fitted the experimental data for the anaerobic digestion (bakraoui et al., 2020; tobo et al., 2020; hadiyanto et al, 2023). the rmse parameter provided a more pronounced distinction between the kinetic models; the modified gompertz model exhibited the least rmse of 0.017 – 0.021, closely followed by the logistic model with 0.021 – 0.034. comparatively, the first order kinetic model had two orders of magnitude greater rsme of 2.087 5.942, which indicated its lesser suitability for describing the data. 5. conclusion the wh substrate with 30% rsw proportion exhibited the most stable daily biogas production and largest yield in co-digestion of wh with rsw. introduction of rsw to wh substrate progressively improved biomethanation rate with the 20% rsw exhibiting the maximum biogas production rate. however, the 30% rsw presented the largest cumulative biogas production over the 60 days retention period. fig. 5. experimental, first order, modified gompertz and logistic models biogas production potential for a) 0% rsw, b) 10% rsw, c) 20% rsw and d) 30% rsw proportions substrate at 32ºc 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 a) experimental gomprtz first order logistic c u m m u la ti v e c h 4 m l/ (g v s ) duration (days) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 b) experimental gomprtz first order logistic c u m m u la ti v e c h 4 m l/ (g v s ) duration (days) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 c) experimental gomp first order logistic c u m m u la ti v e c h 4 m l/ (g v s ) duration (days) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 d) experimental gompertz logistic first order c u m m u la ti v e c h 4 m l/ (g v s ) duration (days) omondi et al. int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 627-634 |633 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore the trend in the rate of biomethanation was similar for both modified gompertz and logistic models. similarly, the duration of lag for the two models followed a similar trend characterized by initial increase in biogas production followed by a lag phase that was attributed to lowering the ph by formation of acids, which suppressed methane formers. at 30% rsw proportion, the reactor ph was sufficiently buffered, which allowed uninterrupted growth of methane formers. the co-digestion was best described by the modified gompertz model with an rmse of 0.020 compared to 0.042 and 3.363 for the logistic and the first order kinetics models, respectively. the process kinetics parameters for the modified gompertz model were: (1) biogas yield potential, mo, 43.2 ml (gvs)-1; (2) maximum biogas production rate, rm, 1.50 ml (gvs)-1 d-1; (3) lag phase function, λ, 3.89 d. funding no funding was received for this work from any organization. declaration of competing interest the authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. references adiga, s., ramya, r., shankar, b.b,, patil, j.h & geetha, c.r (2012). kinetics of anaerobic digestion of water hyacinth, poultry litter, cow manure and primary sludge: a comparative study. 2nd international conference on biotechnology and environment management ipcbee vol.42 (2012) iacsit press, singapore. 73-78. https://doi.org/10.7763/ipcbee. 2012.v42.15 ali, s.s., elsamahy, t., abdelfattah, a., mustafa, a., khalil, m.a., mastropetros, s.g., kornaros, m., sun j. & azab m. 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module using artificial neural networks model with optimizing the neurons number abdulrahman th. mohammad1* , hasanen m. hussen2 , hussein j. akeiber3 1middle technical university (mtu), baqubah technical institute, renewable energy department, baghdad, 10074, iraq 2ministry of higher education and scientific research, department of research and development, baghdad, 10074, iraq 3ministry of interior, directorate of arab and international cooperation, department of educational affairs, baghdad, iraq abstract. artificial neural networks (anns) is an adaptive system that has the ability to predict the relationship between the input and output parameters without defining the physical and operation conditions. in this study, some queries about using ann methodology are simply clarified especially about the neurons number and their relationship with input and output parameters. in addition, two ann models are developed using matlab code to predict the power production of a polycrystalline pv module in the real weather conditions of iraq. the ann models are then used to optimize the neurons number in the hidden layers. the capability of ann models has been tested under the impact of several weather and operational parameters. in this regard, six variables are used as input parameters including ambient temperature, solar irradiance and wind speed (the weather conditions), and module temperature, short circuit current and open circuit voltage (the characteristics of pv module). according to the performance analysis of ann models, the optimal neurons number is 15 neurons in single hidden layer with minimum root mean squared error (rmse) of 2.76% and 10 neurons in double hidden layers with rmse of 1.97%. accordingly, it can be concluded that the double hidden layers introduce a higher accuracy than the single hidden layer. moreover, the ann model has proven its accuracy in predicting the current and voltage of pv module. keywords: photovoltaic, power production, artificial neural networks, neurons @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 31st oct 2022; revised: 27th january 2023; accepted: 16th feb 2023; available online: 30th march 2023 1. introduction the traditional statistical techniques are useful to estimate the behaviour of linear systems in different engineering disciplines. the presence of nonlinearity in some of applications makes the traditional statistical techniques inefficient to predict the relationship between the input and output parameters (nayak et al., 2017). among the soft computing methodologies, the artificial neural networks (anns) are widely used in recent time to predict, optimize and classify the behaviour of many problems in our life (abiodun et al., 2018). anns are relevant to machine learning (ml) models which have the ability to mimic the basic biological neural systems, especially the human brain (mubiru, 2011). anns can be classified into two main algorithms: feed-forward neural network (ffnn) and feedbackward neural network (fbnn) (hertz, 2018). the ffnn is defined as a classification algorithm where each neuron in a layer connects to other neurons in other layers with an equal weight (abiodun et al., 2018). the weight is defined as an indicator for the potential amount of the knowledge in the network. during the ffnn, the information is transmitted in one direction from input layer to output layer throughout the hidden layer. when the network is operated normally and acted as a * corresponding author email: abd20091976@gmail.com (a.th. mohammad) classifier, the fbnn process between the layers is not necessary (hagan and menhaj, 1994). the fbnn is denoted as algorithm for back-preferable propagation training which has the ability to build coordinated graph in sequence from the connections between the neurons. the fbnn can be used to minimize the loss function by adjusting or correcting the weights. in general, the simple architecture of ann consists of input, hidden and output layers (mohammad et al., 2020; mohammad et al., 2013) which composes a number of interconnected elements called neurons. each neuron receives the input signal from external process or from another neuron. the output signal from each neuron produces from a transfer function and passes into other neuron or external outputs (zhang et al., 1998). the following are the key questions that numerous researchers have addressed: a. what is the number of hidden layers and the number of neurons?; b. is there a relationship between the neurons number and the input and output parameters?; c. are there other parameters relate to determine the neurons number?. according to zhang et al. (1998), the accuracy of anns is mostly influenced by the number of hidden layers and their neurons. cybenko, (1989) demonstrated that the single hidden layer is sufficient to investigate any desired accuracy in research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49972 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49972 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49972 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=abiodun%20oi%5bauthor%5d&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=30519653 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=abiodun%20oi%5bauthor%5d&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=30519653 mailto:abd20091976@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0487-4464 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1119-7390 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-2207-0150 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.49972&domain=pdf a. th. mohammad et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 478-487 |479 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore any complex nonlinear problems. however, this requires a large number of neurons. this is not desirable in the training time of the optimal number of neurons since it leads to poor generalization ability of anns. several colleagues proved the advantages of double hidden layers over single hidden layer in anns. according to barron (1994), double hidden layers provide greater benefits in some cases. srinivasan et al. (1994) investigated that the higher efficiency in the training stage can be improved using double hidden layers. in addition, zhang (1994) demonstrated that the high accuracy of prediction can be achieved using double hidden layers. on the other hand, some other colleagues demonstrated a relationship between the number of input parameters and neurons in hidden layers and introduced a heuristic constraint on the number of neurons (lachtermacher, 1995). kang (1991), tang and fishwick (1993), wong (1991), and lippmann (1987) and hecht-nielsen (1990), proved the existence of a relationship between the number of neurons and the input parameters which mathematically represented as (j=n/2), (j=n), (j=2n), and (j=2n+1), respectively. j is the number of neurons and n is the number of input parameters. some other colleagues proved the existence of a relationship between the neurons number and input/output parameters. for instance, kalogirou et al. (1996) proposed that the neurons are set according to the formulas: (𝑗𝑗 = 2 3 (𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜) and 𝑗𝑗 = 3 2 (𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜)). moreover, mohanraj (2009) proposed that the number of neurons is set according to the formula (𝑗𝑗 = √𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜 + 𝑎𝑎). where a is a constant from (1 to 5) and o is the output parameters. in this regard, the number of training data has an influential role for determining the number of neurons as mathematically represented as: (𝑗𝑗 = ((𝑛𝑛 + 𝑂𝑂)/2) + √(𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑎𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡 𝑑𝑑𝑎𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑎 𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑝𝑝)) (kalogirou, 1996, kalogirou et al., 1997 and 1998, luyao liu et al., 2017, shaft et al., 2006). a critical analysis of the above studies would introduce the shortcoming the of the conducted research. specifically, the number of neurons in hidden layer were randomly selected or by trial and error. furthermore, the compatibility between hidden layers and the number of neurons is not thoroughly addressed and discussed. therefore, the research intends to optimize the neurons number in single and double hidden layers which would enable to predict the output power of pv module. to appropriately approve the contribution of this research, the associated results of optimal neurons will be compared against those neurons that mathematically represented by some other colleagues. in this regard, the comparison between the performance of single and double hidden layers will be presented for the optimum number of neurons. 2. related works the applications of photovoltaic (pv) solar cells technology have become widely used to generate the electrical power over the last two decades. generally, output characteristics of pv modules can be represented in current-voltage (i-v) and powervoltage (p-v) curves (singh and ravindra, 2012). these characteristics are influenced by the ambient conditions such as, solar radiation, ambient temperature, dust and wind speed (ziane, 2021; kidegho et al., 2021). the relationship between the input parameters of ambient conditions and pv output is a complex nonlinear system. in literature, numerous studies were presented to analyse and estimate the output characteristics and performance of pv using an experimental, analytical and numerical models. among of these models, the machine learning using anns has been approved as an active model to predict the output electrical characteristics of pv modules. this section focuses on addressing the most important aspects that can be used to predict the output power of pv module using ann methodology. barhdadi et al. (2019) used an ann model with levenberg-marquardt back-propagation algorithm to predict the output power of pv module. the structure of ann has six input parameters and random neurons number from (5 to 35) with single hidden layer. the results showed that the neuron number 35 has achieved the better prediction in ann model. two topologies of ann named as feed forward and radial basis were investigated by gaur et al. (2018) to predict the performance of five pv module technologies under the influence of solar irradiance and temperature. in each topology, single and multi-hidden layers with 10 and 5 neurons were trained and tested using built-in functions and levenberg-marquardt with resilient back propagation, respectively. the results of the proposed ann models indicated that the mean bias error deviations are less than 1% if compared to the dependent models. in the same context, di-falco et al. (2014) used three types of ann topologies named as multilayer perceptron, a recursive neural network and a gamma memory trained to forecast the production power of pv module under the influence of ambient conditions. additionally, module temperature, open circuit voltage (voc) and short circuit current (isc) were used as an input parameter of the ann model. the result showed that the error ranged between 0.05 to 1% for the predicted and real power of pv module. two architectures of neural networks were used by enachescu et al. (2016) to forecast the production power of pv module. the first architecture is a multilayer perceptron with back propagation and two neurons number (15 and 100). the second architecture is named elman networks with feed forward. according to the obtained results, the elman type with small data has performed better than multilayer perceptron in learning stage. the multilayer perceptron (mlp) topology was used by jumaat et al. (2018) to predict the maximum voltage (vm) and current (im) of pv module. the structure of ann contains seven input parameters named as solar irradiance, ambient temperature, relative humidity, humidity ratio, module temperature, voc, and isc). the ann architecture built as single hidden layer with number of neurons from 1 to 10 and two output parameters. the results elucidated that the ann model is of a high accuracy to predict the vm and im of pv module. kayri and gencoglu (2019) employed the feed-forward ann topology with a back-propagation algorithm to predict the output power of mono-crystalline silicon pv module. six input parameters of weather conditions were considered including the solar irradiance, solar elevation angle, ambient temperature, wind speed, wind direction and relative humidity besides two hidden layers to build the ann structure. the comparison between the estimated and measured results showed that the maximum mean square error has not exceeded 1.4% and the coefficient of determination (r2) ranged between 99.637 to 99.998%. a simple ann structure was proposed by mellit et al. (2013) to estimate the output power of 50 wp pv in turkey. the ann model depends on input data as measured along one year including the solar irradiance, air temperature and output power in cloudy and sunny days. the ann structure considered single hidden layer with one neuron. the results elaborated that the model of sunny days is more accurate than the model of cloudy days. the determination coefficient of the cloudy days recorded between 93% and 97% while recorded between 96% and 97% in sunny days. 3. methods and ann applications a polycrystalline pv module type (frs-165w) selected and installed at the centre of middle technical university a. th. mohammad et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 478-487 |480 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore baghdad-iraq to achieve the experimental tests and to collect the dataset. the pv module has the following technical specifications: (pmax=165 wp, isc=9.81 a, voc=22.05 v, imp=9.17 a and vmp=18 v). the i-v tracer (seaward pv200) used to measure the output electrical characteristics of pv module including: voc, isc, vmp and imp. in addition, solar meter (survey 200r) unit used and synchronized with the i-v tracer to measure the ambient temperature, solar radiation and back temperature of the pv module. also, a handle anemometer used to measure the wind speed (va). totally, 326 measured data obtained through the period of tests. these data were stored and reported by solar data logger and displayed by solarcert software. ann has been used effectively in photovoltaic for solving various problems, for example, the effects of atmospheric variables on the production power in pv modules. it is defined as a mapping system that can be used to represent a nonlinear relationship between the input and output parameters (mellit et al., 2013). in general, the simple structure of ann consists of three layers named as: input layer, hidden layer and output layer (figure 1) (pontes et al., 2012). the relationship between the input and output layers can be represented mathematically as: 𝑂𝑂𝑗𝑗 = 𝑜𝑜 ∑ 𝑊𝑊𝑗𝑗,𝑖𝑖 𝑋𝑋𝑖𝑖 + 𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑖 𝑚𝑚 𝑖𝑖=1 (1) where: w, x and b are the weight, input parameter and bias, respectively and f is the activation function. the output neurons (k) in the output layer can be expressed as: 𝑦𝑦𝑘𝑘 = 𝑡𝑡∑ 𝑊𝑊𝑘𝑘,𝑗𝑗 𝑂𝑂𝑗𝑗 𝑛𝑛 𝑗𝑗=1 (2) the relationship between the input parameters and k is represented in eq. 3 (mackay, 1992) 𝑦𝑦𝑘𝑘 = 𝑡𝑡�∑ 𝑊𝑊𝑘𝑘,𝑗𝑗 𝑛𝑛 𝑗𝑗=1 𝑜𝑜�∑ 𝑊𝑊𝑗𝑗,𝑖𝑖 𝑋𝑋𝑖𝑖 + 𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑖 𝑚𝑚 𝑖𝑖=1 �� (3) the training process tries to adjust the connection weight for keeping the predicted output (yk) closed as expectation to the desired ouput (yk���) under the given input parameters (xi). the error fuction between the predicted and desired output can be formuated as a minimum value (elsheikh et al., 2019; raj et al., 2019). 𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑚𝑚𝑛𝑛 1 2 ∑ (yk��� − 𝑦𝑦𝐾𝐾)2𝑙𝑙𝑘𝑘=1 (4) the transfer function is used to obtain and send the signals between the layers. there are three popular types of transfer functions called: linear, sigmoid, and hyperbolic tangent transfer functions (mellit et al., 2013). the mathematical model of these types of transfer functions can be represented as: 𝑜𝑜(𝑆𝑆) = ⎩ ⎨ ⎧ 𝑆𝑆 𝑙𝑙𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑎𝑎𝑛𝑛 𝑜𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑓𝑓𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑛𝑛 1 1+𝑒𝑒−𝑆𝑆 𝑝𝑝𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑑𝑑 𝑜𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑓𝑓𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑛𝑛 𝑒𝑒+𝑆𝑆 −𝑒𝑒−𝑆𝑆 𝑒𝑒+𝑆𝑆 +𝑒𝑒−𝑆𝑆 ℎ𝑦𝑦𝑝𝑝𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑡𝑡𝑓𝑓 𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡 𝑜𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑓𝑓𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑛𝑛 (5) the sigmoid transfer function is considered as a better method among the transfer functions (mellit et al., 2013). therefore, the current study utilised this as an activation function. the error can be expressed as: 𝐸𝐸 = 1 2 �yk��� − 1 1+𝑒𝑒−𝑆𝑆 � 2 (6) 𝐸𝐸 = 1 2 �yk��� − 1 𝑒𝑒−∑ 𝑊𝑊𝑗𝑗,𝑖𝑖𝑋𝑋𝑖𝑖+𝑏𝑏𝑖𝑖 𝑚𝑚 𝑖𝑖=1 � 2 (7) the chain rule theory is also applied to calculate ( 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 ) as follows: 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 = 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝑥𝑥 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝑥𝑥 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 (8) according to the derivation of each component, the final change error of the weight can be represented as: 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 = (yk��� − 𝑦𝑦𝑘𝑘) 1 1+𝑒𝑒−𝑆𝑆 �1 − 1 1+𝑒𝑒−𝑆𝑆 �𝑋𝑋 (9) therefore, if the predicted output 𝑦𝑦𝑘𝑘 is not close to the desired output yk���, the weights must be adapted (rumelhart et al., 1986). 𝑊𝑊𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑛 = 𝑊𝑊𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑜 − ƞ 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 (10) where: ƞ is the learning rate (0 ≤ ƞ ≤ 1). the quantitative variable of neurons is normalized to some standard ranges such as [0 1] or [-1 1] before beginning the training and testing processes (mohammad et al., 2013). the normalization process can be investigated according to (sanjay et al., 2006) as: 𝑋𝑋𝑖𝑖 = 0.8 𝑜𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚−𝑜𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑖𝑚𝑚 (𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑖 − 𝑑𝑑𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑖𝑛𝑛) + 0.1 (11) where: dmax, dmin and di are the maximum, minimum and number (ith) of the desired input/ output data, respectively. 3.1. neurons number there is no mathematical formula can determine the number of neurons in the hidden and output layers. therefore, most of the fig. 1 basic design of ann structure. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s0960148113002279#! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s0960148113002279#! a. th. mohammad et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 478-487 |481 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore colleagues were relied on the trial and error approach to select the neurons number. besides, some of them suggested a relationship between the neurons number and input parameters. for example, kang (1991), tang and fishwick (1993), wong (1991), lippmann (1987) and hecht-nielsen (1990) suggested that the neurons number can be specified by the input parameters: 𝑗𝑗 = � 𝑛𝑛 2� 𝑛𝑛 2𝑛𝑛 2𝑛𝑛 + 1 (12) where: j and n are the neurons number and input parameters, respectively. some other colleagues proved that neurons number can be specified by input and output parameters. mohanraj (2009) proved the following relationship 𝑗𝑗 = √𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜 + 𝑎𝑎 (13) kalogirou et al. (1996) also introduced eq. 14 to identify the neurons number 𝑗𝑗 = � 2 3 (𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜) 3 2 (𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜) (14) where: o is the number output parameters and (a) is a constant from 1 to 5. kalogirou (1996), kalogirou et al. (1997), kalogirou et al. (1998), liu et al. (2017), and shaft et al. (2006) stated that the number of training data plays a key role in determining the neurons number besides considering the input and output parameters. this is clearly represented in eq. 15 𝑗𝑗 = �𝑛𝑛+𝑂𝑂 2 � + �𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑎𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡 𝑑𝑑𝑎𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑎 𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑝𝑝 (15) 3.2. structure of proposed ann in the current study, two architectures of ann were proposed. the first one represents ann structure with single hidden layer. the second one represents with double hidden layers. a 326 dataset were used to run the ann models. the block diagram of concept the overlap between the ann model and experimental setup is depicted in figure 2. the minimum and maximum values of the measured parameters are summarized fig. 2 concept of the overlap between the anns model and experimental setup. table 1 minimum and maximum values of measured data. parameters symbol unit min max input parameters solar irradiance g w/m2 169.2 1003 ambient temperature ta oc 32 51 wind speed va m/sec 0.3 2.5 module temperature tc oc 32.6 69.1 open circuit voltage voc v 19.6 20.6 short circuit current isc a 4.116 9.1 output parameters output power p w 0 140 a. th. mohammad et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 478-487 |482 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore in table 1. the characteristics of the ann model can be drawn as: • six nodes used in input layer. these include the solar irradiance, ambient temperature, wind speed, module temperature, open circuit voltage and short circuit current) and one node in output layer (output power). • the model used levenberg-marquardt backpropagation technique in training stage. • 70% from dataset was used for training, while 15% for testing and 15% for validation • single and double hidden layers were evaluated in the ann model. • the sigmoid and purlin functions were used as an activation functions in the hidden and output layers. • the neurons number were tested from 1 to 100. • the optimization of neurons number has been evaluated using rmse in validation and training stage. • mean squared error (mse) and coefficient of determination are used to measure the effectiveness of the ann model (r2). 4. results and discussions in this study, two ann architectures with single and double hidden layers were used to predict the production power of pv module in the real weather conditions of iraq. the capability of ann models has been evaluated under the impact of several weather and operational parameters. totally, six variables were used as the input parameters. three of these variables related to the weather conditions (ambient temperature, solar irradiance and wind speed) while, the other variables related to the characteristics of pv module (module temperature, short circuit current and open circuit voltage). 4.1. visualization of weather and operational parameters a scatter plot visualization technique was used to represent and express the data graphically as shown in figure 3. the main goal of visualization process is to acquire insight into the data. the measured output power of pv is plotted and ranged against the solar irradiance, ambient temperature, module temperature, wind speed, open circuit voltage and short circuit current. it is clear that that the power increases linearly with irradiance and open circuit current. on the other hand, the linearity decreases with wind speed. however, the relationship becomes random with ambient temperature, module temperature and open circuit voltage. 4.2. optimization of neurons number two matlab codes were used to optimize the neurons number in single and double hidden layers. the optimization ranged between 1 to 100 and evaluated depending on the minimum value of root mean squared error (rmse) in validation stage. also, the evaluation depends on the minimum difference of rmse between training and validation stages. figures 4 shows the best neuron number of 15 in single layer with rmse value of 2.76 % and 10 in double hidden layer with rmse value of 1.97%. furthermore, the difference between the fig. 3 visualization of measure data with power production of pv module. a. th. mohammad et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 478-487 |483 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore rmse in validation and training stages has recorded 0.18% and 0.21% in single and double hidden layers, respectively. generally, the optimal neuron in each single and double hidden layer has showed a better rmse than the neurons that proposed by many colleagues (kang, 1991; liu et al., 2017; shaft et al., 2006; h-nielsen, 1990; mohanraj et al., 2009; kalogirou et al., 1996-1997-1998; kalogirou, 1996; wong, 1991; lippmann, 1987). the comparison of rmse in single hidden layer would also show that the neuron number 5 (according to the formulas of mohanraj et al., 2009 and kalogirou et al., 1996) has represented a lower rmse of 2.4% in validation stage but with difference about 2.31% from training stage. in addition, the neuron number 7 (according to the formula of mohanraj et al., 2009) has elaborated the same value of rmse in the current study but with difference about 0.36% from training stage. however, the neuron number 5 in double hidden layers (according to mohanraj et al., 2009 and kalogirou et al., 1996) has recorded the same value of rmse of the current study but with difference about 2.94%. in more details, table 2 discusses the calculation of neurons number according to the mathematical formulas imposed by the colleagues in the open literature. their values of rmse in validation and training stages (a) single hidden layer (b) double hidden layer fig. 4 optimal neurons number (a) single hidden layer (b) double hidden layers. a) single hidden layer b) double hidden layer fig. 5 best validation performance (a) single hidden layer (b) double hidden layers. a. th. mohammad et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 478-487 |484 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore were calculated based on the results of the present ann model when run from (1 to100) neurons number. table 2 has been adopted to clarify the comparison between the present ann model and previous ann models depending on the values of rmse in validation stage and the minimum difference between rmse for validation and training stages. 4.3. performance of ann model figure 5 shows the best performance of ann model for single and double hidden layers. it is clear that the best validation performance in single layer has been investigated at epoch 6 with mse of 1.966×10-3. however, it has been investigated at epoch 4 with mse of 1.950×10-3 in double hidden layer. furthermore, the mse of training stage in single and double hidden layers has recorded lower value than mse of testing and validation stages. this is a great indication that the data of the model were learned very well in training stage. figure 6 defines the regressions curves of all the ann stages including: training, testing, validation and all for single and double hidden layers. the coefficient of determination (r2) is used as an indicator to evaluate the accuracy between the predicted and target of (a) single hidden layer (b) single hidden layer fig. 6 regression curves of all stages (a) single hidden layer (b) double hidden layers fig. 7 measured and predicted values of output power of pv. a. th. mohammad et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 478-487 |485 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore production power. in single layer, the values of r2 ranged as 0.9881, 0.981, 0.982 and 0.985 for training, testing, validation, and all, respectively. for double hidden layer, the values of r2 ranged as 0.9887, 0.985, 0.99 and 0.988, respectively. according to r2, it can be observed that the ann model of double hidden layers has the best accuracy if compared to the model of single layer in all the stages of ann model. figure 7 shows the pattern of predicted power of the ann model in single and double table 2 present neurons number compared with literature studies. ann structure reference formula rmse-valid(%) difference rmse% (validtrain) single hidden layer 6-3-1 (kang, 1991) j=n/2 6.4 2.30 6-6-1 (tang et al., 1993) j=n 7.04 1.84 6-12-1 (wong, 1991) and (lippmann,1987) j=2n 2.08 2.18 6-13-1 (h-nielsen, 1990) j=2n+1 8.03 5.90 6-4-1 6-5-1 6-6-1 6-7-1 6-8-1 (liu et al., 2017) 𝑗𝑗 = √𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜 + 𝑎𝑎 a=1,2,3,4,5 3.2 2.4 7.04 2.76 4.06 0.58 2.31 1.84 0.36 0.68 6-5-1 (shaft et al., 2006) 𝑗𝑗 = 2 3 (𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜) 2.4 2.31 6-11-1 (shaft et al., 2006) 𝑗𝑗 = 3 2 (𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜) 8.53 4.88 6-19-1 (mohanraj. et al., 2009), (kalogirou et al., 19961997-1998), (kalogirou., 1996) 𝑗𝑗 = � 𝑛𝑛 + 𝑂𝑂 2 � + �𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑎𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡 𝑑𝑑𝑎𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑎 𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑝𝑝 6.23 2.23 6-15-1 present study optimization 2.76 0.18 double hidden layer 6-3-3-1 (kang, 1991) j=n/2 4.03 1.31 6-6-6-1 (tang et al., 1993) n 2.96 2.06 6-12-12-1 (wong, 1991) and (lippmann r.p., 1987) j=2n 6.69 4.96 6-13-13-1 (h-nielsen, 1990) j=2n+1 8.12 4.97 6-4-4-1 6-5-5-1 6-6-6-1 6-7-7-1 6-8-8-1 (liu et al., 2017) 𝑗𝑗 = √𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜 + 𝑎𝑎 a=1,2,3,4,5 2.67 1.97 2.96 6.22 3.40 1.31 2.94 2.06 3.68 0.13 6-5-5-1 (shaft et al., 2006) 𝑗𝑗 = 2 3 (𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜) 1.97 2.94 6-11-11-1 (shaft et al., 2006) 𝑗𝑗 = 3 2 (𝑛𝑛 + 𝑜𝑜) 7.93 4.85 6-19-19-1 (mohanraj et al., 2009), (kalogirou et al., 19961997-1998), (kalogirou, 1996) 𝑗𝑗 = � 𝑛𝑛 + 𝑂𝑂 2 � + �𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑎𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡 𝑑𝑑𝑎𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑎 𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡𝑝𝑝 5.45 2.02 6-10-10-1 present study optimization 1.97 0.21 (a).measured and predicted (i-v) curves (b)measured and predicted (p-v) curve fig. 8 validation of ann model with measured data (a) i-v curve (b) p-v curve. a. th. mohammad et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 478-487 |486 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore hidden layers for training and validation stages. the pattern is similar with measured value of power especially in double hidden layer. however, there is a little deviation in the single hidden layer at training stage. the accuracy of convergence the patterns increases in the validation stage for double hidden layer more than the single hidden layer. . 4.4. case study of (i-v) and (p-v) curves to confirm more reliability of the present ann model, the model was tested to predict the maximum power point current (imp) and voltage (vmp). the output results of current and voltage prediction are represented as: (i-v) and (p-v) curves to compare them against the measured data as shown in figure 8. a good matching can be seen between the predicted and measured (iv) and (p-v) curves. in addition, the ann model with double hidden layer has achieved more convergence with the measured data rather than ann model with single hidden layer. this indicates that the ann model has proven its accuracy in predicting the current and voltage of pv module. 5. conclusion two ann architectures with single and double hidden layer have been used to predict the power production of a polycrystalline pv module in real condition of iraq. the main 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(2017). forecasting power output of photovoltaic system using a bp network method. energy procedia, 142, 780-786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2017.12.126 mittal, m. birinchi b., sahaj, s. & anshu, m.g. (2018). performance prediction of pv module using electrical equivalent model and artificial neural network. solar energy, 176, 104-117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2018.10.018 ziane, a., necaibia, a., sahouane, n., dabou, r., mostefaoui, m., bouraiou, a., khelifi, s., rouabhia, a. & blal, m. (2021). photovoltaic output power performance assessment and forecasting: impact of meteorological variables. solar energy, 220, 745-7... international journal of renewable energy development int. journal of renewable energy development 3 (2) 2014: 145-154 p a g e | 145 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, 15 july 2014, all rights reserved contents list available at ijred website int. journal of renewable energy development (ijred) journal homepage: http://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijred influence of the determination methods of k and c parameters on the ability of weibull distribution to suitably estimate wind potential and electric energy ruben m. mouanguea * myrin y. kazetb, alexis kuitcheb and jean-marie ndjakac adepartment of energetic engineering, uit, un, po box 455 ngaoundere, cameroon bdepartment of geea, pai, ensai, university of ngaoundere, cameroon cdepartment of physics, faculty of sciences, university of yaounde i, cameroon abstract: the modeling of the wind speed distribution is of great importance for the assessment of wind energy potential and the performance of wind energy conversion system. in this paper, the choice of two determination methods of weibull parameter s shows theirs influences on the weibull distribution performances. because of important calm winds on the site of ngaoundere airport, we characterize the wind potential using the approach of weibull distribution with parameters which are determined by the modified maximum likelihood method. this approach is compared to the weibull distribution with parameters which are determined by the maximum likelihood method and the hybrid distribution which is recommended for wind potential assessment of sites having nonzero probability of calm. using data provided by the asecna weather service (agency for the safety of air navigation in africa and madagascar), we evaluate the goodness of fit of the various fitted distributions to the wind speed data using the q – q plots, the pearson’s coefficient of correlation, the mean wind speed, the mean square error, the energy density and its relative error. it appears from the results that the accuracy of the weibull distribution with parameters which are deter mined by the modified maximum likelihood method is higher than others. then, this approach is used to estimate the monthly and annual energy productions of the site of the ngaoundere airport. the most energy contribution is made in march with 255.7 mwh. it also appears from the results that a wind turbine generator installed on this particular site could not work for at least a half of the time because of higher frequency of calm. for this kind of sites, the modified maximum likelihood method proposed by seguro and lambert in 2000 is one of the best methods which can be used to determinate the weibull parameters. keywords: frequency of calm, weibull parameters, wind energy, wind modeling, wind potential article history: received december 12, 2013; received in revised form may 20, 2014; accepted june 12, 2014; available online how to cite this article: mouangue, r.m., kazet, m.y., kuitche, a. & ndjaka, j.m. (2014) influence of the determination methods of k and c parameters on the ability of weibull distribution to suitably estimate wind potential and electric energy. int. journal of renewable energy development, 3(2), 145-154. http://dx.doi.org/10.14710/ijred.3.2.145-154 * corresponding author: tel.:+ 237 77 46 10 06 / + 237 95 83 35 64 email: ruben.mouangue@univ-ndere.cm / r_mouangue@yahoo.fr 1. introduction energy is an essential ingredient of socio-economic development and economic growth. the need for implementing new and clean energy technologies became pressing due to the awaited rarefaction of the fossil resources on which our development since nearly two centuries was built (omer 2008; rahman et al. 2014). in the interest of sustainable development, the implementation of renewable solutions in complement of other existing solutions is not any more to prove. because of pollution and greenhouse gas, the wind energy, which is a reliable and promising renewable energy, have attracted increasing attention due to their almost inexhaustible and nonpolluting characteristics (li & li 2005; omer 2008). the conversion of wind http://dx.doi.org/10.14710/ijred.3.2.145-154 mailto:ruben.mouangue@univ-ndere.cm citation: mouangue, r.m., kazet, m.y., kuitche, a. & ndjaka, j.m. (2014) influence of the determination methods of k and c parameters on the ability of weibull distribution to suitably estimate wind potential and electric energy. int. journal of renewable energy development, 3(2), 145-154 doi: 10.14710/ijred.3.2.145-154 p a g e | 146 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, 15 july 2014, all rights reserved energy for the electrical production or pumping could thus help to solve a certain number of problems of the african populations. before thinking about wind turbine installation, it is necessary to have minimum information on wind characteristics such as the observed frequency distributions of wind speed, the wind energy density, the predominant direction of wind speed, and the daily and seasonal variations of wind. the first part of this paper consists of the presentation of our research motivation and objectives and a summary description of our site of study. secondly, we will make a detailed description of the weibull and hybrid wind distribution models as well as a presentation of the determination methods of k and c parameters including in particular the maximum likelihood method and the modified maximum likelihood method. then, we will evaluate the mean wind speed, the standard deviation and the mean square error using the different distributions described. in order to predict the provided electric energy, we approximate a vestas v82 power curve. the third part is a description of wind conditions data. we will present the obtained results and discuss them in our last part. 1.1 research motivation and objectives the increasingly rising interest in estimating wind power and wind energy potential at a given site highlights the importance of the statistical simulation of wind speed observations. research and studies on wind power assessment and its applications in ngaoundere has not yet been carried out. the realization of this research may enables professionals to identify, clearly and precisely, areas which could be suitable for the establishment of future parks of wind energy for sustainable development. the wind speed distribution is of great importance for the wind energy potential assessment and for the performance of the wind energy conversion system. the weibull distribution with two parameters is versatile and is commonly used for fitting the measured wind speed probability distribution (seguro & lambert 2000; kaldellis 2008; safari & gasore 2010; boudia et al. 2013; kazet et al. 2013). a few years ago, the preferred method of calculating the weibull parameters was a graphical technique which entailed generating the cumulative wind speed distribution, plotting it on a special weibull graph paper, and drawing a line of best fit (takle & brown 1978; seguro & lambert 2000). later, this procedure was implemented by performing a linear regression on a computer (jamil et al. 1995). seguro and lambert (2000), by using sample data which did not have null speed measurements (calm), demonstrated that the maximum likelihood method is a more suitable computer-based method for estimating the weibull parameters. the weibull distribution with parameters which are calculated by this method showed some deficiencies for sample data of sites having calm (salami et al. 2013). the use of hybrid distribution has also been noted many times: takle and brown (1978), salami et al. (2013). for sites having nonzero probability of calm, these authors pointed out the fact that the weibull distribution is not suitable for the modeling of the wind speed distributions and for the wind potential assessment. they recommend the use of the hybrid distribution for these cases. today, there are several ways to estimate k and c parameters. some of the most used are the maximum likelihood method, the least square method and the standard deviation method (ramírez & carta 2005; sathyajith 2006; safari & gasore 2010; morales et al. 2012). the processes of the calculation of k and c parameters being different, disparities in the results could thus influence the accuracy of a distribution in the modeling of the wind speed frequency histogram. time-series wind data collected at the ngaoundere meteorological station show that the calm is very important. in this work, our purpose is to show that the weibull distribution can also be used for sites having nonzero probability of calm, in the condition that the weibull parameters determination method is well selected. using data collected at a site of ngaoundere, we evaluate the observable wind speed distribution and the wind energy density that we model by using the weibull distribution and the hybrid distribution approaches. finally, we provide an estimate of the electric output energy which could be produced on this site. 1.2 brief description of the site ngaoundere is the capital of the adamawa region of cameroon. it lies at the northern end of the railway to yaounde (capital of cameroon) and is also home to an airport. ngaoundere is the most important town of the region and is the highest habitable zone of the country with an elevation of 1104 m (asecna 2012). the asecna weather service (agency for the safety of air navigation in africa and madagascar) is located at the airport and the geographic longitude – latitude coordinates of the wind data collection mast are 13° 33’ 46.26’’ e and 7° 21’ 24.37’’ n. 2. materials and methods 2.1 weibull wind distribution (wwd) model the probability density function f(v) indicates the fraction of time (or probability) for which the wind is at a given speed v. it is given by equation (1).                       kk c v c v c k vf exp)( 1 (1) int. journal of renewable energy development 3 (2) 2014: 145-154 p a g e | 147 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, 15 july 2014, all rights reserved where:  k is the weibull shape parameter,  c is the scale parameter (m/s),  v is the wind speed (m/s),  f(v) is the probability density function. the cumulative distribution function f(v) gives us the fraction of time (or probability) that the wind speed is equal or lower than v. it is the integral of the probability density function. thus,                 v k c v dvvfvf 0 exp1)()( (2) 2.1.1 determination of weibull parameters a) the maximum likelihood method by using this method, the shape factor k and the scale factor c are estimated solving the following two equations (salami et al. 2013; boudia et al. 2013): 1 1 1 1 )()(                     n vln v vlnv k n i i n i k i n i i k i (3) kn i k i v n c 1 1 1          (4) where:  vi is the wind speed in time step i,  n is the number of nonzero wind speed data points. equation (3) is solved using an iterative procedure. in this work, this is performed using a fortran 90 code and the initial guess used is k = 2 (seguro & lambert 2000). after which, equation (4) is solved explicitly. b) the modified maximum likelihood method according to seguro and lambert (2000), this method most be used when data wind speed are available in the frequency distribution format. the weibull parameters are estimated using equation (5) and (6). 1 1 1 1 )0( )()( )( )()(                      vf vfvln vfv vfvlnv k n i ii n i i k i n i ii k i (5) kn i i k i vfv vf c 1 1 )( )0( 1           (6) where:  vi is the wind speed central to bin i,  n is the number of bins,  f(vi) is the frequency with which the wind speed fall within bin i,  f(v ≥ 0) is the probability that the wind speed equals or exceeds zero. in this work, equation (5) is also solved using an iterative procedure with a fortran 90 code. the initial guess is also k = 2. after which, equation (6) is solved explicitly. 2.1.2 mean speed, standard deviation and energy density a) mean speed the mean wind speed of a regime, following the weibull distribution, is given by equation (7) (sathyajith 2006; kaldellis 2008):          k cdvvvfv m 1 1)( 0 (7) here, γ( ) is the gamma function. b) standard deviation the standard deviation shows how much variation or dispersion from the average exists. a low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be very close to the mean. a high standard deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a large range of values. following the weibull distribution, the standard deviation of the wind speed is calculated by equation (8). 2 1 2 1 1 2 1                    kk c (8) c) energy density the total energy, contributed by all possible speeds in the wind regime, available for unit rotor area and time may be expressed as (sathyajith 2006; sathyajith & geeta 2011):    0 3 )( 2 1 dvvfve d  (9) hence, citation: mouangue, r.m., kazet, m.y., kuitche, a. & ndjaka, j.m. (2014) influence of the determination methods of k and c parameters on the ability of weibull distribution to suitably estimate wind potential and electric energy. int. journal of renewable energy development, 3(2), 145-154 doi: 10.14710/ijred.3.2.145-154 p a g e | 148 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, 15 july 2014, all rights reserved        k ce d 3 1 2 1 3  (10) ρ = 1.03 kg/m3 is the mean air density at the airport of ngaoundere (asecna 2012). d) relative error and mean square error the relative error expresses the variation, as a percentage, between the predicted value and the awaited value. the relative error (re) on the mean energy density is calculated by the equation (11): 100* dd dpdd e ee re   (11) where:  edd is the energy density obtained from data,  edp is the energy density predicted,  re is the relative error (%). the mean square error (mse) is one of many ways to quantify the difference between values implied by an estimator and the true values of the quantity being estimated. mse here is calculated by the equation (12).     n i ii pv n mse 1 21 (12) here:  vi is the actual wind speed,  pi his predicted value. 2.1.3 electric output energy the question of primary interest in wind power applications is of course: what power production can be expected from a given wind turbine at a given site? to answer this, it is necessary to know the power curve of the wind turbine as well as the probability density function of the wind speed at hub height. the power production by a wind turbine varies with the wind that strikes the rotor. it is common practice to use the wind speed at hub height as a reference for the power response of the wind turbine. the power produced as function of the wind speed at hub height is conventionally called the power curve. the fig. 1 below shows the power curve of vestas v82 wind turbine generator (vestas technology documentation 2005). when the wind speed is less than the cut-in wind speed, the turbine will not be able to produce power. when the wind speed exceeds the cut-in speed, the power output increases with increasing wind speed to a maximum value, the rated power; thereafter the output is almost constant. at wind speeds higher than the cut fig. 1 power curve of vestas v82 wind turbine generator out wind speed the wind turbine is stopped to prevent structural failures. the product of the power curve and the probability density function of the wind speed gives the power density curve, the integral of which is the mean power production pel (bataineh and dalalah, 2013):   n d a n v v v v nel dvvfpdvvfvpp )()()( (13) actual power curves are rather smooth and can be well approximated by a piece-wise linear function with a few nodes (pi, vi) (troen & petersen 1989). it is possible to carry out an approximation which consists of assuming that the variation between two nodes of the power-wind speed curve is linear (troen & petersen 1989; carta et al. 2008). then, given two points ‘‘i” and “i + 1” of the power curve, power as a function of speed can be written as equation (14). ii ii ii pvv vv pp vp       )()( 1 1 (14) hence, the annual energy production is: helel npe * (15) nh is the time period of data collection (in hours). 2.2 hybrid wind distribution (hwd) for data sets having high probability of calm and a low value of scale parameter c, the weibull function is not likely to provide a good fit to the data (takle & brown 1978). the problem of properly including calm periods into the distribution is reduced by defining a int. journal of renewable energy development 3 (2) 2014: 145-154 p a g e | 149 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, 15 july 2014, all rights reserved hybrid density function (takle & brown 1978; salami et al. 2013). hence,                         kk oh c v c v c k fvf exp1)( 1 (16) fo is the probability of observing zero wind speed. parameters values k and c are determined by solving equation (3) and (4). the corresponding cumulative distribution function is defined by (takle & brown 1978),                          k ooh c v ffvf exp11)( (17) the mean speed, standard deviation and energy density of this distribution are then respectively,          k fcv o h m 1 11 (18)   22 2 11 h moh v k fc        (19)          k fce od 3 11 2 1 3  (20) 3. wind condition data measured wind speed data are commonly available in time-series format, in which each data point represents an average wind speed over some time period. in some instances, wind speed data may instead be available in frequency distribution format. 3.1 measurements data used in this paper was obtained at meteorological airport station of ngaoundere. data were recorded every day by 30 minutes interval (average over 10 minutes around the time of measure) at the standard height of 10 m above the ground. 3.2 vertical extrapolation the estimation of the wind resource at the hub height of a wind turbine is one of the primary goals of the site assessment. because the measurement heights of meteorological towers are typically significantly lower than turbine hub height, a mathematical model is generally needed to extrapolate the measured wind resource at the lower measurement height to the hub height of the turbine. in this work, we used the hellmann exponential law defined by equation (21), which is one of the most commonly used models (lackner et al. 2010; đurišić & mikulović 2012; bataineh & dalalah 2013).           r r h h vv (21) where:  α is the wind shear coefficient, dependent mainly on the terrain roughness and atmospheric stability,  hr is the reference height (m),  h is the height desired (m),  vr is the wind speed at the reference height (m/s),  v is the wind speed at the height desired (m/s). for our site, α = 0.3365 (asecna 2012). 3.3 data processing to succeed in it, we used usual equations below: mean speed      n i i n i ii vf vfv v 1 1 )( )( (22) standard deviation         n i i n i ii vf vvvf 1 1 2 )( )(  (23) energy density      n i i n i ii d vf vfv e 1 1 3 )( )( 2 1  (24) citation: mouangue, r.m., kazet, m.y., kuitche, a. & ndjaka, j.m. (2014) influence of the determination methods of k and c parameters on the ability of weibull distribution to suitably estimate wind potential and electric energy. int. journal of renewable energy development, 3(2), 145-154 doi: 10.14710/ijred.3.2.145-154 p a g e | 150 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, 15 july 2014, all rights reserved 3.3 picture of the site fig. 2 mast of the wind data collection of the ngaoundere airport 4. result and discussion by using the ngaoundere wind data, the weibull wind distribution model is applied to two different cases: k and c parameters are determined by the modified maximum likelihood method (momalime) (seguro & lambert 2000). k and c parameters are determined by the maximum likelihood method (malime) (seguro & lambert 2000; boudia et al. 2013). to evaluate the accuracy of our approach, the model is investigated and compared to the hybrid wind distribution model (takle & brown 1978; salami et al. 2013). 4.1 wind potential two cases of the weibull distribution and the hybrid distribution are fitted to the observed wind speed frequency histogram. fig. 3 shows the wind speed probability density function estimated by different methods and models. the solid line represents the weibull distribution in which parameters are calculated by the momalime. the dash dot line represents the weibull distribution in which parameters are calculated by the malime. finally, the long dash line represents the hybrid density function. it is observed in fig. 3 that the curve of the weibull probability density function which use momalime match better the histogram. fig. 4 shows the wind speed cumulative distribution functions. the goodness of fit of the various fitted distributions to the wind speed data is evaluated using the quantile – quantile plots, the pearson’s coefficient of correlation r associated with the probability density function (pdf) plots, the mean speed with its related standard deviation and mse, the energy density and its relative error. fig. 3 wind speed probability density functions fig. 4 wind speed cumulative distribution functions fig. 5 quantile–quantile plot of the weibull and hybrid distributions int. journal of renewable energy development 3 (2) 2014: 145-154 p a g e | 151 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, 15 july 2014, all rights reserved 4.1.1 quantile – quantile (q–q) plot in statistics, a q–q plot is a probability plot, which is a graphical method for comparing two probability distributions by plotting their quantiles against each other (gibbons & chakraborti 2003). from the observed statistical set, one calculates some sample quantiles xi. if the statistical set fit well the chosen theoretical distribution, one should have sample quantiles xi equal to quantiles xi* related to the theoretical model. then, one represent points mi(xi*, xi) with theoretical quantiles on x-axis and sample quantiles on y-axis. if the chosen theoretical distribution is pertinent, fitted points must follow the line y = x (zhang et al. 2013). theoretical quantiles are calculated by the equation (25). )( 1* ii pfx   (25) where:  pi is the probability related to the sample quantile xi,  f -1 is the reciprocal function of the cumulative density function. it is observed that the momalime follows the line y = x more closely than other distributions, as one can see it in fig. 5. 4.1.2 correlation coefficient of pearson the coefficient of correlation is a measure of the agreement between an estimated distribution and the recorded data (zhang et al. 2013). the coefficient of correlation r between the paired pdf data values is evaluated by the following equation (26),                           n i i n i i n i ii yyxx yyxx r 1 2 1 2 1 (26) where:  xi are the observed data values,  yi the predicted data values. the closer the value of r is to one, the more the fitted distribution agrees with the observed data. table 1 shows the comparison of the coefficient of correlation for different models. it is observed that the weibull model with momalime has the largest r value. this observation illustrates the strong potential of this approach to provide accurate representations of wind distribution. regarding the probability density function, the accuracy of fit to the wind speed data of the weibull distribution using momalime is higher than others and this is confirmed by the calculated correlation coefficient. table 1 correlation coefficient of pearson distribution model weibull hybrid momalime malime r 0.908101857 0.781738520 0.781743824 4.1.3 mean speed, standard deviation and mse we applied the previously presented equations to the calculation of the mean speed, the standard deviation and the mse for each month. the results are presented in table 2. it is seen that values of the mean speed obtained by the momalime are more closer to those obtained from data than others approaches. furthermore, most mse values calculated by the momalime are closer to those of data than others mse values (table 2). 4.2 energy density estimation 4.2.1 the height is 10 m for each month of the collection period, the energy density is calculated and the results are presented in table 3. here, the observation is the same as previously. the values of the mean energy density calculated by momalime are closer to those obtained from data than those calculated from malime and hybrid. 4.2.2 relative error on energy density estimated for a better appreciation of the accuracy of momalime, we evaluated the relative errors on the energy density calculated from different models used. fig. 6 shows the estimated relative errors of hybrid distribution and weibull distribution with its two cases (momalime, malime). observation shows that weibull distribution with parameters which are calculated by the momalime performs better than others, the energy density estimations. fig. 6 relative error on the estimated energy density at 10 m of height citation: mouangue, r.m., kazet, m.y., kuitche, a. & ndjaka, j.m. (2014) influence of the determination methods of k and c parameters on the ability of weibull distribution to suitably estimate wind potential and electric energy. int. journal of renewable energy development, 3(2), 145-154 doi: 10.14710/ijred.3.2.145-154 p a g e | 152 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, 15 july 2014, all rights reserved table 2 monthly results of mean speed, standard deviation and mse calculated from different approaches and models table 3 monthly results of energy density and weibull parameters calculated from different approaches and models months data weibull hybrid momalime malime σ mse vm σ mse vm σ mse vmh σ mse may-11 1.7880 1.3845 0.2130 1.7955 1.3730 0.2094 2.0292 1.3410 0.1998 1.1849 1.4321 0.2563 jun-11 1.4379 1.2108 0.1832 1.4490 1.1499 0.1652 1.8844 1.1898 0.1769 0.8892 1.2461 0.1941 july-11 1.4419 1.1851 0.1755 1.4528 1.1205 0.1569 1.6405 1.1308 0.1598 0.8282 1.1482 0.1648 aug-11 1.6909 1.3071 0.2135 1.6991 1.2865 0.2068 1.8870 1.2614 0.2273 1.0791 1.3348 0.2227 sept-11 1.4060 1.1912 0.1773 1.4169 1.1194 0.1566 1.6571 1.1821 0.1746 0.7820 1.1594 0.1680 oct-11 1.2920 1.1093 0.1538 1.3055 1.0291 0.1323 1.6033 1.1067 0.1531 0.6862 1.0741 0.1442 nov-11 1.4709 1.3214 0.2182 1.4794 1.2633 0.1995 2.0048 1.4039 0.2464 0.8259 1.3365 0.2232 dec-11 1.5239 1.3264 0.2199 1.5327 1.2868 0.2069 1.9201 1.3557 0.2297 0.8352 1.3063 0.2133 janv-12 1.5760 1.4072 0.2475 1.5846 1.3565 0.2300 1.9812 1.4577 0.2656 0.8893 1.3874 0.2406 feb-12 1.7949 1.5303 0.2927 1.8027 1.5159 0.2872 2.1619 1.5638 0.3056 1.1220 1.5612 0.3046 mar-12 1.7869 1.5246 0.2905 1.7929 1.5323 0.2935 2.2623 1.5883 0.3153 1.1039 1.5845 0.3138 apr-12 1.6369 1.2908 0.2082 1.6460 1.2677 0.2008 1.9567 1.2409 0.2009 1.0643 1.3370 0.2234 global 1 year 1.5689 1.3305 0.2212 1.5781 1.2840 0.2061 1.9114 1.3298 0.2211 0.9365 1.3343 0.2225 months data weibull hybrid momalime malime d k c ed k c ed k c fo ed may-11 9.4387 1.320 1.950 9.9149 1.544 2.255 11.1553 1.544 2.255 0.416 6.5165 june-11 5.8483 1.269 1.561 5.5937 1.623 2.104 8.3416 1.623 2.104 0.528 3.9361 july-11 5.7643 1.308 1.575 5.3375 1.475 1.813 6.3043 1.475 1.813 0.495 3.1834 aug-11 7.9364 1.334 1.849 8.2493 1.525 2.094 9.1331 1.525 2.094 0.428 5.2239 sept-11 5.6059 1.275 1.528 5.1851 1.421 1.822 6.8828 1.421 1.822 0.528 3.2502 oct-11 4.4782 1.276 1.406 4.0318 1.473 1.772 5.8992 1.473 1.772 0.572 2.5256 nov-11 6.7628 1.175 1.564 6.9129 1.450 2.211 11.8120 1.450 2.211 0.588 4.8686 dec-11 7.0494 1.196 1.628 7.4172 1.437 2.115 10.5215 1.437 2.115 0.565 4.5807 janv-12 8.2415 1.172 1.674 8.5389 1.375 2.167 12.4148 1.375 2.167 0.551 5.5742 feb-12 11.0278 1.194 1.914 12.1094 1.400 2.372 15.6543 1.400 2.372 0.481 8.1321 mar-12 10.6132 1.174 1.895 12.3265 1.446 2.494 17.0455 1.446 2.494 0.512 8.3222 apr-12 7.4298 1.310 1.785 7.7419 1.615 2.184 9.3991 1.615 2.184 0.456 5.1142 global 1 year 7.5026 1.236 1.690 7.5932 1.460 2.110 10.1252 1.460 2.110 0.510 4.9657 int. journal of renewable energy development 3 (2) 2014: 145-154 p a g e | 153 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, 15 july 2014, all rights reserved table 4 monthly wind characteristics calculated using weibull distribution with momalime monthly period weibull parameter (momalime) mean speed energy density k c (m/s) (m/s) ed (w/m2) may-11 1.60 4.00 3.58 58.93 jun-11 1.44 3.10 2.82 33.19 jul-11 1.33 3.10 2.89 39.34 aug-11 1.62 3.80 3.38 49.52 sept-11 1.35 3.20 2.92 41.83 oct-11 1.21 2.90 2.75 40.80 nov-11 1.28 4.50 4.15 130.49 dec-11 1.37 4.80 4.43 135.97 jan-12 1.36 4.70 4.30 129.76 fev-12 1.31 5.20 4.84 188.01 mar-12 1.40 5.80 5.28 225.55 apr-12 1.54 3.60 3.26 45.84 4.2.3 extrapolation at 120 m by applying equation (21) on the set of measured data taken at the measurement height, one obtains these synthetic sets of data at the desired height of 120 m (table 4). 4.3 electric output energy the monthly and annual energy productions are calculated using equation (15). the time period of the data collection is one year that is to say 8784 hours. the power curve of the wind turbine generator used is that of vestas v82 (fig. 1) which has the following characteristics: cut-in wind speed (3 m/s), cut-out wind speed (20 m/s) and a rated power of 1650 kw. fig. 7 the monthly electric output energy calculated using the weibull distribution and the wind power curve of vestas v82 wind turbine generator table 5 global wind characteristics calculated using weibull distribution with momalime period of 12 months weibull parameter (momalime) mean speed energy density output energy k c (m/s) (m/s) ed (w/m2) eel (mwh) 05/2011 to 04/2012 1.26 4.00 3.75 95.85 1332.5 fig. 7 shows the monthly energy outputs for the airport site. the most energy contribution is made in march with 255.7 mwh, while the least energy contribution is observed to be 41.1 mwh in june. while using the synthetic set of data from 120 m of height, we obtained some global wind characteristics. table 5 presents the weibull parameters, the mean speed, the energy density and the annual energy production for the whole data used. from the whole of the results, it is observed that quantiles calculated from the weibull distribution in which parameters are determined by the momalime follows the line y = x more closely than other distributions. furthermore, values of the mean speed and energy density calculated from the same distribution are very close to those obtained from data. this is not the case of the malime and the hybrid distribution. low values of mse and relative error obtained by using momalime suggests that the proposed approach could be more usefull for the wind energy assessment of our site than the weibull distribution in which parameters are determined by malime or than the hybrid distribution. for the particular site of ngaoundere airport, it could be concluded that the wind turbine generator doesn’t works for at least a half of the time because of higher frequency of calm. analysis of the observed wind speed distribution for this specific site proves that fact. according to whether one uses the momalime or the malime, it thus appears in an obvious way that the determination method of weibull parameters has an influence on the relevance of this distribution. the calculation principle of k and c parameters by using malime rely on a speed logarithmic calculation. however, 23 % of the velocity measurements of the site are null and of this fact are not taken into account during the calculation of the parameters what has certainly an influence on the awaited result. 5. conclusion our study was to estimate and characterize the observed wind potential and to provide the electric output energy of the site of ngaoundere by using the weibull distribution in which parameters are determined by the modified maximum likelihood method because of the calm wind observed. the maximum likelihood method and the hybrid citation: mouangue, r.m., kazet, m.y., kuitche, a. & ndjaka, j.m. (2014) influence of the determination methods of k and c parameters on the ability of weibull distribution to suitably estimate wind potential and electric energy. int. journal of renewable energy development, 3(2), 145-154 doi: 10.14710/ijred.3.2.145-154 p a g e | 154 © ijred – issn: 2252-4940, 15 july 2014, all rights reserved distribution were also used to compare them to our approach. taking the results obtained into account, one can retain at the end of this study the following:  the maximum likelihood method, which is one of the most used determination method of the weibull parameters, gives results which are not very satisfactory taking data into consideration. that could be due to the important rate of calm observed in measurements of the site.  although the hybrid distribution was proposed by salami et al. (2013) as the best model that fits the frequency histogram of wind speed and which estimate with precision the amounts of the wind energy, it seems to be not quite satisfactory in the case of the site of ngaoundere.  the determination methods of weibull parameters affect the accuracy of this distribution to model the wind potential of a site. the modified maximum likelihood method proposed by seguro and lambert in 2000 which is recommended for use with wind data in frequency distribution format, is one of the best methods which can be used to determinate weibull parameters for sites which have important frequency of calm. by using this method, the weibull distribution appear to be fine for the modeling of the wind potential and for the wind energy assessment, particularly for sites having nonzero probability of calm. acknowledgements authors would like to thank the asecna weather service of ngaoundere to have provided the meteorological data used in this work. references asecna (2012) archives data of the weather station of ngaoundere. bataineh, k.m. & dalalah, d. (2013) assessment of wind energy po tential for selected areas in jordan. renewable energy, 59, 75-81. boudia, s.m., benmansour, a., ghellai, n., benmedjahed, m. & hellal, m.a.t. (2013). temporal assessment of wind energy resource at four locations in algerian sahara. energy conversion and management, 76, 654–664. carta, j.a., ramírez, p. & velázquez, s. (2008) influence of the level of fit of a density probability function to wind-speed data on the wecs mean power output estimation. energy conversion and management, 49, 2647–2655. đurišić, ž. & mikulović, j. (2012) a model for vertical wind speed data extrapolation for improving wind resource assessment using wasp. renewable energy, 41, 407–411. gibbons, j., chakraborti, s. (2003) nonparametric statistical inference. crc press. jamil, m., parsa, s. & majidi, m. (1995) wind power statistics and an evaluation of wind energy density. renewable energy, 6, no. 5-6, 623–628. kaldellis, j.k. 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(1978) note on the use of weibull statistics to characterize wind–speed data. journal of applied meteorology, 17, 556–559. troen, i. & petersen, e.l. (1989) european wind atlas. 1st ed. denmark: risø national laboratory. vestas technology documentation (2005) general specification of v821.65 mw. http://www.vestas.com/files/filer/en/brochures/pro ductbrochurev821_65_uk.pdf. accessed on 12 december 2013. zhang, j., chowdhurya, s., messac, a. & castillo, l. (2013) a multivariate and multimodal wind distribution model. renewable energy, 51, 436–447. http://www.vestas.com/files/filer/en/brochures/productbrochurev821_65_uk.pdf http://www.vestas.com/files/filer/en/brochures/productbrochurev821_65_uk.pdf samsudin_ijred_as_pf_sw int. journal of renewable energy development 10 (3) 2021: 459-469 p a g e | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2021. the authors. published by cbiore 459 contents list available at ijred website int. journal of renewable energy development (ijred) journal homepage: http://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijred energy analysis and remixing effect of thermal coupling petlyuk column for natural gas liquid (ngl) fractionation train rohani mohd zin*, mohd ammar abidin, munawar zaman shahruddin chemical engineering faculty, universiti teknologi mara (uitm), 40700 shah alam, selangor, malaysia. abstract. in this work, a non-conventional distillation sequence with thermal coupling (petlyuk column) was presented as a technique to perform the separation of the ngl consist of ethane, propane, butane or other higher alkanes. the improvements were investigated through the energy analysis and remixing effect. from the result obtained, it was found that the petlyuk arrangement consumes less amount of energy and able to reduce the remixing effects as compared to the conventional column sequencing. the petlyuk arrangement saved about 44.49% and 12.83% in terms of cooling and heating duty, respectively. the overall annual energy saving shown by this arrangement is 39.22%. this arrangement proved to be able to prevent the remixing effect occurrence that contributes to thermal and separation inefficiency. the desired separation efficiency also obtained by this arrangement as all the product specifications are met. the ability in avoiding remixing effect by the petlyuk column permits a significant reduction in co2 emission with an average of 29.43 % of each equipment involved. hence, it can be concluded that the petlyuk arrangement model is a better alternative to be implemented in the ngl fractionation train. keywords: distillation, fractionation train, thermal coupling, petlyuk column, remixing effect article history: received: 25th sept 2020; revised: 5th february 2021; accepted: 14th february 2021; available online: 18th february 2021 how to cite this article: zin, r.m., abidin, m.a., and shahruddin, m.z. (2021) energy analysis and remixing effect of thermal coupling petlyuk column for natural gas liquid (ngl) fractionation train. international journal of renewable energy development, 10(3), 459-469 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2021.33094 1. introduction distillation is both energy-intensive and efficient processes in the chemical industry, responsible for the largest fraction of an immense amount of energy consumed. distillation operation became a major concern within the sustainability challenge for a primary target of energy-saving efforts in industrially developed (humphrey et al., 1997, matla-gonzález et al., 2013, lucero-robles et al., 2016). although new separation methods are continuously being explored, distillation remains the most frequently used separation process (agrawal et al., 1999; agrawal, 2003). the natural gas processing plant is an example of an industry that dominates these separation processes (manley, 1996; devold. 2009). natural gas liquid (ngl) is a raw material for the petrochemical industry typically consists of ethane, propane, butane or other higher alkanes in a blend (devold 2009). to accomplish the separation of natural gas liquid (ngl), a series of conventional distillation column namely deethanizer, depropanizer and debutanizer columns is used. the separation process requires a series of distillation train because it is impossible to produce more than two products with a single distillation column. due to tight environmental * corresponding author: rohanimz@uitm.edu.my regulations and the high energy cost, there is a need to improve the energy efficiency of distillation systems in a natural gas processing plant. energy analysis is an important approach to understand any process and optimizing the overall energy consumption. various energy analysis works through modelling and optimization of various real-life industry case studies have been conducted by several researchers (hoseinzadeh et al., 2019, kariman et al., 2019, hoseinzadeh et al., 2020 (a), hoseinzadeh et al., 2020(b)). typically, for the conventional distillation arrangements energy integration method has been used to reduce energy costs (shahruddin et al., 2019). however, the scope for energy integration of the conventional distillation columns into an overall process is often limited as the practical constraints prevent integration of distillation columns with the rest of the process (annakou et al., 1996, lucerorobles et al., 2016, egger et al., 2018). since the columns cannot be integrated with the rest of the process and the potential for heat integration is limited by the heat flows in the background process, thus attention must be turned to the distillation operation and look at unconventional arrangement opportunity. research article citation: zin, r.m., abidin, m.a., and shahruddin, m.z. (2021) energy analysis and remixing effect of thermal coupling petlyuk column for natural gas liquid (ngl) fractionation train. int. journal of renewable energy development, 10(3), 459-469, doi: 10.14710/ijred.2021.33094 p a g e | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2021. the authors. published by cbiore 460 the natural gas processing plant is currently using the conventional arrangement that consumes of intensive heat utilization of the overall plant (manley, 1996, matlagonzález et al., 2013). due to a large percentage of heat used in operating the distillation columns, it contributes to a large amount of operating cost and capital cost. alternatively, non-conventional arrangements which is petlyuk columns are the options for these problems. petlyuk column is especially energy-efficient and due to their ability to save capital and energy cost (fidkowski 2006, dwivedi et al., 2013, matla-gonzález et al., 2013, lucero-robles et al., 2016, egger et al., 2018). this unique distillation arrangements have become very attractive although it has rarely been implemented in industries due to the complex arrangement (ramirez-corona et al., 2010), lack of knowledge and understanding and scepticism towards practical issues such as control (hernandez et al., 1999). for the gas processing plant industries, especially in malaysia none of the plants has implemented any of these complex distillation arrangements yet. only in the recent years, the petlyuk arrangement was successfully applied in industry for a limited amount of feed components (matla-gonzález et al., 2013, errico et al., 2015, egger et al., 2018). this indicates that these problems may be resolved by this non-conventional arrangement. thus, in this work, the scope of knowledge extends to the complex distillation arrangements on ngl fractionation train. the present work investigates the energy analysis, purity of the final products (product specifications) and remixing effects of the thermally coupled petlyuk column as the non-conventional arrangement in ngl fractionation train. comparisons are made with the current conventional arrangements. the potential of reducing the co2 emissions through the implementation of petlyuk column is also investigated. comparison analysis is carried out on the potential reduction of co2 mitigation between conventional distillation column and petlyuk column. 2. ngl separation natural gas generally comprises 90% methane and 10% other light alkanes. in its marketable form, natural gas is processed to obtain a specific composition of hydrocarbons, sour and acid ((hydrogen sulfide (h2s) and carbon dioxide(co2)) permissible quantity and energy contents. natural gas liquids are primarily raw materials for a petrochemical industry typically consist of ethane, propane, butane or other higher alkanes in a blend or separately (devold 2009). as the energy demands growing, global oil resources need to be utilized to the fullest and as efficiently as possible (underwood et al, 2015). with the increasing demands and limited resources, it has become a driver for the industry to overcome the problems and find solutions to meet the market demands. one of the methods to overcome the problem is through the optimization of the processing plant and produces high-quality products with low energy consumption and consequently cost-effective. 2.1 conventional ngl fractionation train a typical ngl fractionation train is shown in figure 1 and consists of a series of conventional distillation columns. in this processing plant, the natural gas feed will be separated into individual component to produce methane, ethane propane and butane using a demethanizer, a deethanizer, a depropanizer and a debutanizer column respectively. in some other gas processing plants, the mixed butane product can be further split in a deisobutanizer to produce normal and isobutane. however, the scope of energy analysis of this work will focus on a deethanizer, a depropanizer and a debutanizer column. future work will be done involving the de-methanizer column, as the energy utilization for the column is different from typical distillation operation since it involves a complex cryogenic separation process. in typical gas plant (figure 1), the ngl liquid enters the deethanizer, which separates the ethane from the mixed ngl liquid. the column operates with a partial condenser and produces a cold ethane gas product at the top of the column (as shown in table 1). the bottom product from the deethanizer feeds the depropanizer. a propane stream is taken from the depropanizer reflux drum as the top product as indicated in table 1. the debutanizer removes the butane as the top product from the remaining ngl liquid. pentane plus (pentane with higher alkanes component), or natural gasoline, is taken as a bottom product from the debutanizer as shown in table 1 and figure 1. a train or sequence of separators is required because it is often impossible to produce more than two products with single separation equipment. by proceeding from the lightest hydrocarbons to the heaviest, it is possible to separate the different ngls reasonably easily (essam bahnassi et al., 2005). table 1 summarized the different types of fractionators that are considered in this study for the natural gas liquid (ngl) fractionation train. 2.2 non-conventional arrangements (thermally coupled petlyuk column) one of the most important non-conventional distillation arrangements involves thermal coupling (agrawal et al., 1999; agrawal, 2006). in this work, the distillation sequences with thermal coupling were presented as a technique to perform a separation with less energy consumptions and reduced remixing effects as compared to the conventional simple column sequencing. table 1 types of fractionator types of fractionator feed top product bottom product deethanizer ngl liquid/ (demethanizer bottom) ethane propane plus depropanizer deethanizer bottom propane butanes plus debutanizer depropanizer bottom butane pentanes plus int. journal of renewable energy development 10 (3) 2021: 459-469 p a g e | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2021. the authors. published by cbiore 461 fig 1. conventional fractionation trains of natural gas (essam bahnassi et al., 2005). fig 2. the evolution of distillation arrangements (nath et al., 1981). citation: zin, r.m., abidin, m.a., and shahruddin, m.z. (2021) energy analysis and remixing effect of thermal coupling petlyuk column for natural gas liquid (ngl) fractionation train. int. journal of renewable energy development, 10(3), 459-469, doi: 10.14710/ijred.2021.33094 p a g e | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2021. the authors. published by cbiore 462 a non-conventional column that realizes energy and capital cost savings is the petlyuk column (as shown in figure 2). this type of configuration was discovered and patented by wright in 1949 (underwood, 1946), but only in the last years has become more attractive and its applicability more realistic (matla-gonzález et al., 2013, errico et al., 2015, egger et al., 2018). in this configuration, the columns are thermally-coupled as illustrated in figure 2 (caballero et al., 2004). thermal coupling is used to describe the situation when liquid from a column is used to supply reflux and vapour is used to supply boil-up to another column (petlyuk et al., 1965). several variations of this arrangement are used to eliminate heat exchangers in column designs. in this configuration, three products can be produced from the two columns with one reboiler and one condenser, as compared to a conventional arrangement. figure 2 shows the overall evolution from the distributed sequencing to the fractionator arrangement. then, it evolved finally from the fractionator column to petlyuk column. this figure also shows the evolution from the side-rectifier or side-stripper to the petlyuk column (nath et al., 1981). the principal limitation in employing this structure was the lack of the process design. however, with modern and more suitable mathematical knowledge, high modelling tools and dynamic simulations, the problem can be overcome (thompson et al., 1972). 2.3 co2 emission carbon dioxide (co2) emission is directly related to energy consumption, thus the reduction of energy consumption it will bring significant alleviation in the emission. in the natural gas liquid (ngl) fraction train, the energy consumption is contributed by the operations of reboiler and condensers. higher heat consumption led to higher fuel utilization particularly, in the overall steam usage for the reboilers in which consequently increase the co2 emissions to the environment. similarly, higher condenser duty for a distillation column also indirectly contributes to higher energy (power) consumption in the required pump to transport a large amount of cooling water needed. hence, higher energy (power) consumption directly related to the higher emission of co2. 3. methodology the most important part to be optimized is the distillation arrangement since it is responsible for the largest fraction of a vast amount of energy consumed. there are several process simulations packages available and mostly used for example aspen plus, simsci pro/ii, and unisim (strausa and skogestada, 2016). these simulation packages use sequential-modular approach for solving the flowsheet, in which each unit operation is considered as a separate block and calculated sequentially (biegler et al., 1997). hysys software package was utilized in the modelling and process simulation of natural gas liquids fractionation train in this study. hysys is a market-leading process modelling tool for conceptual design, optimization, performance monitoring for oil & gas production, gas processing, and petroleum refining industries (chowdhury, 2012). the advantages of hysys are it uses best-in-class process technologies and has the ability to provide process design knowledge to improve the profitability and efficiency of the business (sultana and amin 2011). 3.1 modelling and process simulation hysys (an abbreviation for hyprotech systems) is a powerful and efficient tool with a reasonable accuracy that offers a comprehensive thermodynamics model in determining the phase behaviours, transport properties as well as the physical properties of the components. it also offers a comprehensive library of unit operation models (oyegoke and dabai 2018, trupti et al., 2012). hysys software also normally used in process modelling with the capability to provide process design knowledge (sultana and ruhul amin 2011) to improve plant control and operability., the first stage in hysys simulation involves the definition of all components. feed components details were entered into the flowsheet by selecting the material from the component database (chemmangattuvalappil and chong 2017). table 2 shows the compositions of the feed component and its operating conditions for the fractionation of natural gas liquids (ngl) employed in this study. the data used is the typical composition of natural gas feed-in malaysia. whilst table 3 shows the product specifications of natural gas liquids (ngl) component that need to be achieved. the product specification values are based on the market requirements. in this simulation work, consider a typical gas plant as shown in figure 1. in this processing plant, the ngl liquid feed with composition as shown in table 2, enters the deethanizer column. the ethane gas is separated in this column as the top product with the required minimum purity of 0.93 mol fraction (93 mol%) as shown in table 3. the bottom product from the deethanizer feeds the depropanizer and produced propane stream with a minimum purity of 93 mol%. the debutanizer received a feed from the bottom of the depropanizer and separates the butane from the remaining feed liquid. table 2 specifications of feedstock and operating conditions for natural gas liquids (ngl) fractionation. component raw feed (mole percent) methane 0.8080 ethane 0.0566 propane 0.0277 i-butane 0.0094 n-butane 0.0057 i-pentane 0.0042 n-pentane 0.0023 n-hexane 0.0039 n-heptane 0.0032 n-octane 0.0043 carbon dioxide 0.0706 nonane 0.0003 decane 0.0006 nitrogen 0.0032 total 1.0000 inlet flow rate 21420 kmol/hr pressure 23 bar temperature -98.29ºc int. journal of renewable energy development 10 (3) 2021: 459-469 p a g e | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2021. the authors. published by cbiore 463 this butane product stream should be produced typically about 0.98 mol fraction (98 mol%) with allowable maximum propane content of 0.02 mol fraction (2 mol%). pentane plus (pentane with higher alkanes component) is taken out as the bottom product from the debutanizer. the pentane plus product should be produced with a requirement of maximum of 2 mol% of propane content and reid vapor pressure (rvp) of 83 kpa. the corresponding details on these products composition for each component can be referred to table 3. once all the components were computed, appropriate fluid packages were chosen to be assigned to estimate the conditions and properties after the simulation. in this simulation work, non-random two liquid (nrtl) and peng-robinson fluid packages were employed for the liquid and vapour phase respectively for the simulation. peng-robinson fluid package was chosen since the process involves the simulation of hydrocarbon at high pressure (chemmangattuvalappil and chong 2017). the simulation of conventional fractionation train was accomplished by adopting a direct sequence of four distillation columns i.e demethanizer, deethanizer, depropanizer and debutanizer (figure 3). each of these three columns (deethanizer, depropanizer and debutanizer) in this configuration is essentially a conventional distillation column with a reboiler and a condenser being used to carry out the separation. hence, it is simulated using the basic distillation column in hysys. on the other hand, a reboiled absorber is used to simulate the demethanizer as there is no condenser in this unit. for the simulation of non-conventional fractionation thermally coupled, the separations of the individual component are achieved by adopting a sequence of demethanizer, petlyuk column and debutanizer (figure 4). for this simulation, the petlyuk column is simulated using the fractionator (absorber and one main column) as opposed to typical separation. the main column and debutanizer in this configuration are essentially a conventional column with reboiler and condenser. hence, it is simulated using the basic distillation column in hysys. on the other hand, an absorber is used to simulate the fractionator as there is no condenser and reboiler while a reboiled absorber is used to simulate the demethanizer as there is no condenser in this unit. table 3. product specifications of natural gas liquids (ngl) component component (mol fraction) specification requirement metha ne ethane propane butane c5+ methane 0.85 min 0.02 max ethane 0.93 min 0.02 max propane 0.02 max 0.93 min 0.02 max 0.02 max butanes 0.04 max pentanes rvp (kpa) 83 max total product flowrate (kmol/hr) 19670 min : minimum mol fraction content. max : maximum mol fraction content/reid vapor pressure (rvp) the simulations of both conventional (figure 3) and nonconventional with petyluk (figure 4) arrangement were optimized by ensuring each of the natural gas liquids (ngl) component product specifications are achieved as per requirement stated in table 3. 3.2 co2 emission reduction for the analysis of co2 emission, the calculations and analysis are made based on several assumption and conditions. apart from complying with the products specification range, the operating pressure at the bottom of the column should only be in the range of medium or low-pressure steam as the heating media to minimize the operating cost. all calculations on the emissions to the environment resulting from heating and cooling duty are made based on the assumption that fuel used is pure methane and the emission is carbon dioxide. these assumptions are made based on justifications: 1) the heating duty will determine the amount of fuel required, thus directly correlate with the emissions amount to the environment resulting from the combustion process. 2) the cooling duty indirectly determines the power consumption needed by the pump to supply the required cooling water. hence, the power consumption will have a direct correlation with the total co2 emission. according to gadalla (2003), the heating equipment for example boiler and furnace, if combusted when mixed with air, co2 emissions will be produced based on the following: 𝐶𝑥𝐻𝑦 + '𝑥 + 𝑦 4 )𝑂2 → 𝑥𝐶𝑂2 + 𝐻2𝑂2 𝑦 (1) where x and y denote the number of carbons, c, and hydrogen, h, atoms which present in the fuel compositions. in this case, complete oxidation of carbon is assumed. typical fuels used in this heating equipment are light to heavy fuel oils, natural gas, and coal. in this work, methane is considered since it is widely being used in the current market due to more environmentally friendly feature compared to the others. in the combustion of fuels, the air is assumed to be in an excess amount to ensure complete combustion, hence no carbon monoxide is formed. co2 emissions are related to the amount of fuel burnt, qfuel (kw), in heating equipment calculated based on the following equation (2); [𝐶𝑂.]01233 = ' 56789 :;< )'=% ?@@ )𝛼 (2) where (α= 3.67) is the ratio of molar masses of co2 and nhv (kj/kg) represents the net heating value of fuel with a carbon content of c% (dimensionless) (gadalla, 2003). the amount of fuel burnt can be determined as; 𝑄cdef = 5ghij kghij (ℎnopq − 419) v6wxy vz v6wxy v[\]j^ (3) where λproc (kj/kg) and hproc (kj/kg) are the latent heat and enthalpy of steam delivered to the process, respectively tftb (oc) is the flame temperature of the boiler flue gases (smith,1991). citation: zin, r.m., abidin, m.a., and shahruddin, m.z. (2021) energy analysis and remixing effect of thermal coupling petlyuk column for natural gas liquid (ngl) fractionation train. int. journal of renewable energy development, 10(3), 459-469, doi: 10.14710/ijred.2021.33094 p a g e | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2021. the authors. published by cbiore 464 fig 3. rigorous simulation of conventional arrangement. fig 4. rigorous simulation of non-conventional arrangement with petlyuk column. int. journal of renewable energy development 10 (3) 2021: 459-469 p a g e | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2021. the authors. published by cbiore 465 4. results and discussion as the scope of the research focusses on the ngl fractionation trains, the results will be discussed based on the energy analysis, products specifications, remixing effects of the separation involving ethane, propane, butane, and pentane plus products as well as the co2 emission reduction analysis. 4.1 energy analysis and product specification from optimized conventional and non-conventional thermal coupled (petyluk) ngl fractionation arrangement. once the rigorous simulation converged, the conventional and non-conventional thermal coupled (petyluk) ngl fractionation trains were optimized. the optimized results for both configurations are summarized in table 4. based on the optimized results, the total heating duties and cooling duties for conventional columns arrangements are 22,869 kw and 114,686 kw respectively. hence, for this ngl application, 137,555 kw of total energy is required for the separation process. for the petlyuk arrangement, based on optimized results, the total heating duties and cooling duties are 19,936kw and 63,658 kw respectively. for this ngl application, about 131,475kw of total energy is required for the separation process. this amount is much lower than the conventional arrangement. this, in turn would lead to a significant saving in the operating cost (indicated by the energy utilization by condensers and reboilers). the percentage of cooling and heating duty saving is 44.49% and 12.83% respectively. based on the calculations, the overall saving in energy consumption associated with the petlyuk arrangement is 39.22%. in term of product specifications, comparisons of simulated results with the market requirement were performed. the optimized results of the product specification were tabulated in table 5. overall, the product specifications for each of the component in term of mole fraction content and reid vapor pressure (rvp) are achieved for all columns in both conventional and petlyuk arrangement configurations. based on table 5, the composition of methane and ethane products is similar for both arrangements. the composition of propane and butane products for both arrangements is slightly different, however still within the specification range. the purity of propane product for the conventional column is 0.9526 which slightly higher than petlyuk arrangement with corresponding purity of 0.9309. butane products also show a similar condition for both configurations. this is proven where the purity of butane products obtained for conventional and petlyuk arrangement is 0.9398 and 0.9319, respectively. for the rvp requirement, the maximum specification is 83 kpa. table 4 the optimized result of simulated conventional and non-conventional thermal coupling (petlyuk) columns arrangement. columns arrangement conventionala petlyuk columns cooling duty (kw) heating duty (kw) cooling duty (kw) heating duty (kw) deethanizer 6937 9186 n/a n/a depropanizer 65277 8451 8853 13520 debutanizer 42472 5232 54805 6416 sum duty (kw) 114686 22869 63658 19936 total duty: heating & cooling (kw) 137555 83594 *saving cooling duty (%) 44.49 *saving heating duty (%) 12.83 *overall saving: heating & cooling (%) 39.22 a results from zin et al. (2011) *saving: comparison between conventional and petlyuk column. table 5 product specification of simulated conventional arrangement and non-conventional thermally coupled petlyuk arrangement. specification product product methane ethane propane butane c5+ methane ethane propane butane c5+ conventional arrangement petlyuk arrangement methane (mol fraction) 0.8800 0 0.8800 0 ethane (mol fraction) 0.0385 0.9900 0.0060 0.0385 0.9900 0.0050 propane (mol fraction) 0.0099 0.9526 0.0199 0.0099 0.9309 0.0099 butanes (mol fraction) 0.04 0.9398 0.0600 0.9319 rvp (kpa) 61.46 56.83 product flowrate (kmol/hr) 19670 456.5 590.6 300.1 404.4 19670 456.2 602.9 295 393 *rvp (reid vapor pressure) citation: zin, r.m., abidin, m.a., and shahruddin, m.z. (2021) energy analysis and remixing effect of thermal coupling petlyuk column for natural gas liquid (ngl) fractionation train. int. journal of renewable energy development, 10(3), 459-469, doi: 10.14710/ijred.2021.33094 p a g e | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2021. the authors. published by cbiore 466 both arrangements show that this requirement are met which is 61.46 kpa and 56.83 kpa for conventional column and petlyuk column arrangement, respectively. even though there are some similarities and differences in term of product specifications, both simulated configurations show the correct level of design assurance as well as guarantees on the product quality. therefore, it can be concluded that the separation efficiency of petlyuk column arrangement is excellent as the product specifications for each of the component in mole fraction content and rvp are met as per market requirements. hence, it shows that the separation efficiency of the petlyuk arrangement is at par with the conventional column but with a much lower amount of energy being utilized to carry out the required separation. 4.2 remixing effect consider a feed mixture to deethanizer column in the conventional arrangement consisting of mainly ethane (a), propane (b), and butane (c) where a is the lightest and c the heaviest. in the deethanizer column, the concentration of b builds to a maximum at a tray near the bottom. on trays below this point, the amount of the heaviest component c continues to increase, diluting b so that its concentration profile now decreases on each additional tray toward the bottom of the column. energy has been used to separate b to a maximum purity. since b has not been removed at this point, it is remixed and diluted to the concentration at which it is removed in the bottoms. this remixing effect leads to a thermal inefficiency as shown in figure 5. fig 5. composition profile of the conventional arrangement showing remixing effect. fig 6. composition profile of the petlyuk arrangement showing no remixing effect occurring. int. journal of renewable energy development 10 (3) 2021: 459-469 p a g e | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2021. the authors. published by cbiore 467 the remixing effect occurrence is a source of inefficiency in the separation process. in comparison, considering the petlyuk arrangement (figure 6), a split is formed in the fractionator, leading to b being distributed between the top and bottom of the column separating ab from c and bc from a. hence, both sections remove only one component from the product of that column section, and this is also true for all sections of the main column. in this way, the remixing effect which is a feature of the conventional sequence is avoided. besides, it is known that losses occur in distillation operations due to mismatches between the composition of the column feed and the composition on the feed tray. as the fractionator distributes b between top and bottom, this allows greater freedom to match the feed composition with one of the trays in the column to reduce mixing losses at the feed tray. thus, the result of this study is consistent with the previous study by triantafyllou and smith (1992) which explained the occurrence of remixing effect and how it can be avoided using petlyuk column. 4.3 co2 emission reduction analysis table 6 summarizes the amount co2 emission by each of the equipment involved in both conventional distillation and non-conventional (petyluk) arrangement. figure 7 illustrates the amount of co2 emissions based on equipment (boiler, furnace, and gas turbine) involved in the fractionation train operation according to the column arrangement table 6 co2 emission by the boiler, furnace, and gas turbine involved in the fractionation train according to the column arrangement. equipment conventional arrangement non-conventional (petlyuk) arrangement co2 emission (x 107 kg/hr) boiler 4.23 2.99 furnace 18.9 13.4 gas turbine 4.25 3.00 fig 7. co2 emissions by boiler, furnace, and gas turbine for conventional and petyluk column arrangements from table 6 and figure 7, the petlyuk column arrangement exhibits the lowest co2 emissions for each type of equipment involved. on average the percentage of saving for reduction shown by each equipment is about 29.24 %. as the conventional arrangement consists more of distillation columns as compared petlyuk column arrangement, therefore more energy is required to carry out the desired duty. this resulted in more fuel consumption needed and produce a higher emission of co2 as shown in figure 7. due to the feature of thermal coupling of the petlyuk arrangement where the different columns are connected by liquid and vapour countercurrent streams which allow the remixing effect to be avoided, and consequently reducing the amount of heating and cooling energy required. this unique feature is the key reason for the co2 emission reduction by the petlyuk column arrangement 4.4 technology application to other industries. the use of non-conventional distillation column (petyluk) can be extended to other industries that deal with the separation of a multi-component mixture with tight control over purity and consistency. therefore, this technology can be applied in the production of biofuels, pharmaceutical industries, and alcoholic beverage production. 5. conclusion the energy analysis and remixing effects of natural gas liquids (ngl) fractionation process through the conventional and thermally coupled petlyuk arrangement have been successfully carried out. simulations were conducted out using hysys software. through this study, a framework for analyzing and improving the performance of (ngl) fractionation train was provided. synthesis of typical ngl fractionation train, steady-state simulations of conventional sequence and thermally coupled petlyuk arrangement using hysys, analysis on energy consumptions, product specification, and remixing effect have been investigated. the comparisons were made, and it was found that petlyuk arrangement saved about 44.49% and 12.83% in terms of cooling and heating duty, respectively. the overall annual energy consumption saving associated with the petlyuk arrangement is 39.22% as compared to the conventional arrangement. in the aspect of product specifications, petlyuk arrangement able to maintain the purity of the final products within the acceptable ranges. petlyuk arrangement proved to be an attractive alternative column as it can avoid the remixing effect occurrence which is a very important factor to be considered since remixing condition contributes to thermal and separation inefficiency. the unique feature of thermal coupling of petlyuk column permits significant co2 emission reduction due to the ability to avoiding remixing effect. this is one of the key advantages acquired by the petyluk column. from the results collected, it can be preliminary concluded that petlyuk arrangement model is better suited to be implemented in the ngl fractionation train. however, is recommended to have a comprehensive future study to validate the results obtained and to propose solutions to overcome the technological shortcomings. dynamic state of hysys modelling that mimic the real operating conditions and 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0 16.0 18.0 20.0 boiler furnace gas turbine co 2 em is si on (x 1 07 k g/ hr ) conventional non-conventional (petlyuk) citation: zin, r.m., abidin, m.a., and shahruddin, m.z. (2021) energy analysis and remixing effect of thermal coupling petlyuk column for natural gas liquid (ngl) fractionation train. int. journal of renewable energy development, 10(3), 459-469, doi: 10.14710/ijred.2021.33094 p a g e | ijred-issn: 2252-4940.copyright © 2021. the authors. published by cbiore 468 the actual equipment sizing should be carried out to verify the practicality of the petlyuk arrangement technology implementation in natural gas fractionation train particularly on the feasibility of scale-up and economic assessment aspect. the current analysis of data in the study conducted can be utilized in the future to understand the process better. it also can become useful information to facilitate in designing and optimizing each step taken in the processing plant as well as the process equipment involved. acknowledgments the authors gratefully like to thank the ministry of higher education (mohe) and universiti teknologi mara (uitm) for grants of fundamental research grant scheme (frgs) 600-irmi/frgs 5/3 (053/2019) in providing financial support and for the facilities provided to conduct this study. references agrawal, r. 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(1946) fractional distillation of multicomponent mixtures calculation of minimum reflux ratio. j. inst. petrol: 32, 614. https://doi.org/10.1021/ie50480a044 zin r.m., salleh r., sazali r.a., kassim n.z., (2011) energy efficiency in natural gas processing plant via adoption of complex column (petlyuk column) for sustainable environment. 3rd international symposium & exhibition in sustainable energy & environment. 36-41. https://doi.org/10.1109/isesee.2011.5977105 © 2021. this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attributionsharealike 4.0 (cc by-sa) international license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023,12(2), 270-276 | 270 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.48432 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id utilization of cassava peel (manihot utilissima) waste as an adhesive in the manufacture of coconut shell (cocos nucifera) charcoal briquettes bayu rudiyantoa* , intan rida agustinaa, zeni ulmaa, dafit ari prasetyoa, miftah hijiriawanb , bambang piluhartoc, totok prasetyod aenergy engineering laboratory, departement of renewable energy engineering, politeknik negeri jember, jl. mastrip 164 jember 68121, indonesia bgraduate program of mechanical engineering, universitas sebelas maret, jl. ir. sutami no.36 surakarta, 57126, indonesia cdepartment of chemistry, universitas jember, jl. kalimantan 37 kampus tegalboto, jember 68121, indonesia cdepartment of mechanical engineering, politeknik negeri semarang, jl. prof. h. soedarto s.h. semarang, 50275, indonesia abstract. coconut shells and waste cassava peels could be used as the main raw material for biomass briquettes for alternative energy sources in indonesia. this study aims to analyze the quality of briquettes based on a coconut shell and cassava peel adhesive through proximate analysis with three treatment ratio variations. the ratio of coconut shell to cassava peel used varied from v1 (75%:25%), v2 (70%:30%), and v3 (65%:35%). based on the result, the charcoal briquettes produced have a density of 0.61 gram/cm³-0.66 gram/cm³, water content of 5.51%-7.85%, ash content of 1.50%2.86%, combustion rate of 0.021 gram/s-0.026 gram/s, and the calorific value of 6,161 cal/gram-6,266 cal/gram. however, all the treatment variations appropriate the sni 01-6235-2000, the national standard of indonesia for the quality of charcoal briquette, which includes the calorific value (>5,000 cal/gram), moisture content (<8%), and ash content (<8%). briquettes with the best quality were generated by v1 with a density of 0.66 gram/cm³, water content of 5.51%, ash content of 1.50%, combustion rate of 0.026 gram/s, and calorific value of 6,266 cal/gram. furthermore, briquette material from the coconut shell waste with natural cassava peel adhesive can be feasible as an alternative fuel. keywords: biomass, briquettes, cassava peel waste, coconut shell, proximate analysis @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 20th august 2022; revised: 24th nov 2022; accepted: 2nd jan 2023; available online: 12th jan 2023 1. introduction the amount of energy needed has increased due to indonesia's population growth. in 2021, energy consumption from coal could reach 17% of the total national energy consumption mix (bppt, 2021). this certainly encourages the importance of using alternative and renewable energy sources. in this case, biomass is a renewable energy source that can be used as an alternative fuel to replace fossil fuels with abundant availability (budi surono, 2019; sunardi, djuanda, & mandra, 2019; tzelepi et al., 2020). biomass includes agricultural, plantation, forest waste, and organic components from industry and households (yana, nizar, irhamni, & mulyati, 2022). furthermore, the development of biomass as an alternative energy source has many challenges, and one of them is the production process (cuong et al., 2021; dani & wibawa, 2018; yana et al., 2022). however, the briquette is a biomass product that can be produced through a simple process with economic value, high heat content, and abundant availability of raw materials to compete with other fuels (sunardi et al., 2019). various types of waste can be used as raw materials to produce briquettes while solving the waste management * corresponding author email: bayu_rudianto@polije.ac.id (b. rudiyanto) problem (ardelean et al., 2022; bazhin, kuskov, & kuskova, 2019; ganesan & vedagiri, 2022; vaish, sharma, & kaur, 2022). coconut shell (cocos nucifera) is a waste product that can be utilized to produce charcoal briquettes. in this case, indonesia has quite extensive coconut plantations that can be used. this follows statistical data from the directorate general of plantation (2021) that the total area of coconut plantations is 3,401,893 ha, with a total production of 2,839,852 tons. besides, the coconut shell also contains a high calorific value reaching 7,283.5 cal/gram (nurhilal, suryaningsih, & indrana, 2018), and the coconut shell water content is only 10.03% (ghafar, halidi, & so’aib, 2020). however, in charcoal briquette production, natural adhesives are usually needed to support the quality of the briquettes. the addition of adhesive is meant to reduce the briquette’s pores and give them a solid structure, permitting them to be shipped and stored without being easily destroyed (jiang et al., 2022; kamunur, ketegenov, kalugin, karagulanova, & zhaksibaev, 2022). in addition, the coconut shell charcoal's fine grains are combined with the adhesive substance to be molded as required. research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.48432 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.48432 mailto:bayu_rudianto@polije.ac.id https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4708-629x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4667-2908 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.48432%26domain=pdf b. rudiyanto et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 270-276 |271 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore in this case, various adhesive materials in the manufacture of briquettes have been developed (helwani et al., 2020; maulina, sarah, misran, & anita, 2021; suryaningsih, resitasari, & nurhilal, 2019). cassava peel (manihot utilissima) is one of the materials that can be utilized as an alternative due to its availability to assist the production of coconut shell briquettes as a biomass raw material. it can be seen that the production of cassava plants in indonesia can reach 19,053,748 tons (ministry of agriculture, 2021). cassava peel has the potential to be used as an adhesive in the production of briquettes due to its moisture content of 9.93-11.46%, volatile materials of 77.9381.93%, ash content of 1.93-4.36%, fixed carbon content of 13.44-15.51%, lignin content of 6.5-16.0%, cellulose content of 5.5-14.5%, hemicellulose content of 41.0-56.0%, and calorific value of 3,843.84 cal/gram (hirniah, 2020; kayiwa, kasedde, lubwama, & kirabira, 2021a, 2021b). furthermore, cassava peel has a carbohydrate content of about 30.15% that can be used as an adhesive (anggraeni, girsang, nandiyanto, & bilad, 2021; kariuki, muthengia, erastus, leonard, & marangu, 2020). proximate testing is needed to determine the quality of briquettes based on sni. however, due to its ready-to-use product characteristic, proximate testing is required to determine the ability of briquettes as fuel. in charcoal briquette production, it is necessary to consider the value of water content, volatile matters, ash, solid carbon (fixed carbon), and calorific value as the main parameters of the quality of briquettes. the water content indicates the ease of burning, and briquettes are easier to mold when the water content is high. volatile matter, ash, and solid carbon as total fixed carbon refer to the amount of smoke when the briquettes are burned (srisang et al., 2022). besides, the calorific value represents the energy produced from briquettes and the ease of burning (adeleke, odusote, ikubanni, olabisi, & nzerem, 2022; guo et al., 2020; velusamy, subbaiyan, kandasamy, shanmugamoorthi, & thirumoorthy, 2022). the novelty of this research is the composition of raw materials and adhesives for the production of the briquettes. although coconut shell has been commercialized as a raw briquette material, tapioca flour is still used as an adhesive. however, cassava peel is an excellent adhesive material because it has a starch content above 30%. therefore, this research aims to determine the concentration level between coconut shell biomass and cassava peel natural adhesive according to the five aspects based on the sni 01-6235-2000 in indonesia. this is expected to produce a suitable correlation to obtain the development of charcoal briquettes better. as a result, the production of charcoal briquettes as an alternative fuel with high economic value, wide availability, and simplicity of access, can serve in the development of new and ecologically friendly energy sources. 2. method 2.1 development of coconut shell (cocos nucifera) charcoal briquettes material in this research, coconut shell waste is used as raw material for briquettes production, and cassava peel waste is used as an adhesive. the chemical and physical properties of the coconut shell and cassava peel is shown in table 1 and 2. coconut shell as the raw material that has been dried is then pyrolyzed using a furnace at a temperature of 300℃ for 7 hours (rizal et al., 2020; sarkar & wang, 2020; tu et al., 2021). during the pyrolysis process, the raw material of coconut shells is charred evenly. the result of the coconut shell that has been charcoaled is then pounded. table 1 chemical and physical properties of coconut shell (kabir ahmad et al., 2022) parameters properties description proximate analysis moisture content 5.56% volatile matter 70.82% fixed carbon 21.80% ash 1.80% ultimate analysis c 40.08% h 5.22% n 0.22% s 0.17% o 54.31% potential as energy source porosity 24.39% compressibility index 40.24% calorific value 19.4 mj/kg fuel value index 4441 table 2 chemical and physical properties of cassava peel (kayiwa et al., 2021a) no. properties description 1 moisture content 9.77-11.50% 2 volatile matter 78.22-82.31% 3 fixed carbon 13.44-15.51% 4 ash content 1.85-4.40% 5 lignin 6.5-16.0% 6 cellulose 5.5-14.5% 7 hemicellulose 41.0-56.0% then, the coconut shell is sieved using a 40-mesh which aims to produce a fine, uniform particle size, and suitable as a briquette material (abyaz, afra, & saraeyan, 2020; meytij, santoso, rampe, tiwow, & apita, 2021; setter, sanchez costa, pires de oliveira, & farinassi mendes, 2020). the production of cassava peel adhesive begins with cleaning the attached peel dirt. then, the cassava peel is dried and mashed using grinding. when the cassava peel has been processed into flour, it is filtered, combined with hot water in a 1:2 ratio, and stirred thoroughly to remove lumps. the purpose of the hot water addition is to make the mixing process easier. variations in the mixture of briquette raw materials were carried out using coconut shell charcoal which had been mashed using adhesive homogeneously with a predetermined composition, namely variation 1 (v1), variation 2 (v2), and variation 3 (v3), as shown in table 3. furthermore, the finished raw material mixture is placed into the briquette mold in the shape of a cylinder with a material weight of 30 grams. the briquette mixture was flattened to a height of 5.7 cm, then pressed 60% to produce briquettes with a height of 2.3 cm. the briquettes harden during the one-minute pressure hold. the drying process was then continued by heating for 4 hours at 105°c in an oven. the briquettes were consequently stored at room temperature for 24 hours. table 3 composition variations of coconut shell charcoal briquettes variation name briquettes material composition coconut shell charcoal cassava peel adhesive v1 75% (22.5 grams) 25% (7.5 grams) v2 70% (21 grams) 30% (9 grams) v3 65% (19.5 grams) 35% (10.5 grams) b. rudiyanto et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 270-276 |272 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore table 4 specifications of instruments used in the study instrument specification wire mesh gb/t6003.1-2012 40 mesh heater unb 400 (oven) 230 vac; 6.1 a; 50/60 hz furnace carbolite elf 11/6b 230 vac; 9.6 a: 2000 watt; max temp 1100℃ m20 universal mill (grinder) 230/115 ±10% vac; 50/60 hz; 550 watt; 20,000 rpm; 250 ml ika © 2000 bomb calorimeter 230/115 vac; 50/60 hz; 1.8 kw; measurement range 40,000 j 2.2 experimental and testing instruments in the manufacturing and analysis performed, this research uses several types of equipment, such as a 40-mesh sieve, mortar, briquette press, heater (oven), grinding, baking sheet, mixing tank, pan, cup, analytical balance, pyrolysis equipment, ika © 2000 bomb calorimeter, stopwatch, and caliper. further details for the instrument used in this study are shown in table 4. 2.3 quality test of briquettes the quality testing of coconut shell charcoal briquettes included density, moisture content, ash, combustion rate, and calorific value. density can be examined by measuring the mass of briquettes and the volume of briquette samples using equation (1): 𝜌 = 𝑚 𝑣 (1) whereas 𝜌 (g/cm3) is density, 𝑚 (g) is the mass of briquettes, and 𝑣 (cm3) is the volume of the briquettes. moisture content can be tested by weighing the sample to determine the initial weight and then heated in an oven at 105℃ for 6 hours. the sample was weighed again to decide its final weight after being dried in the oven for an hour. the water content can be calculated using equation (2): 𝑀𝐶 = 𝑋1−𝑋2 𝑋1 100% (2) where 𝑀𝐶 is moisture content, 𝑋1 (g) is the initial weight of the sample, and 𝑋2 (g) is the final weight of the sample. ash content is the residue from burning briquettes that are not completely burned. the ash content test was carried out by weighing the empty weight of the cup, then 1 gram of the sample in the cup was heated in the furnace gradually at a temperature of 450-950℃ for 1-2 hours and then allowed to stand at room temperature until the temperature was normal. equation (3) can calculate ash content as follow: 𝐴𝐶 = 𝐵−𝐴 𝐶−𝐴 𝑥 100% (3) where 𝐴𝐶 is ash content, 𝐴 is the weight of an empty cup, 𝐵 is the weight of the cup and ash, and 𝐶 is the weight of the cup and the sample. the rate of burning of briquettes is determined by the weight of the briquettes burned over a certain period using equation (4): 𝑉 = 𝑚𝑡 𝑡 (4) where 𝑉 (g/s) is the rate of burning of briquettes, 𝑚𝑡 (g) is the mass of the burned briquettes, and 𝑡 (second) is the required burning time. fig. 1 briquette preparation schematic diagram the heat produced by briquettes and oxygen at a fixed volume can be evaluated using a bomb calorimeter to determine the calorific value. figure 1 shows the method used in this study to produce coconut shell charcoal briquettes using waste cassava peel as an adhesive. 2.4 data analysis in this study, we performed a quantitative analysis of density, moisture content, ash content, combustion rate, and calorific value of the coconut shell charcoal briquettes production using adhesive from waste cassava peel in each variation in the ratio of material composition. the analysis was carried out to determine whether the values of the various parameters complied with the indonesian national standard (sni) 01-62352000. moreover, a one-way analysis of variance (anova) test was conducted to investigate whether variations in the material composition used to create adhesive from waste cassava peel during the production of coconut shell charcoal briquettes affected each of the parameters analyzed in this study. furthermore, posthoc analysis using the tukey method was carried out to determine the significant differences between each variation (aransiola, oyewusi, osunbitan, & ogunjimi, 2019; karimibavani, sengul, & asmatulu, 2020; niño, arzola, & araque, 2020). 3. results and discussion 3.1 density the briquette density test was carried out using the ratio of mass and volume. the homogeneity and size of the charcoal are affected by the density the briquettes produce. the results of the density measurement of charcoal briquettes v1, v2, and v3 are presented in figure 2. fig. 2 density of coconut shell briquettes with cassava peel adhesive 0.66 0.63 0.61 0.54 0.56 0.58 0.60 0.62 0.64 0.66 0.68 0.70 v1 (75%:25%) v2 (70%:30%) v3 (65%:35%) d e n s it y ( g r a m /c m ³) b. rudiyanto et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 270-276 |273 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore table 5 density analysis using the tukey method with 95% confidence variation n mean grouping v1 3 0.66456 a v2 3 0.63108 b v3 3 0.61050 c based on figure 2, it can be seen that the highest density value is in v1 of 0.66 g/cm3 with a ratio of coconut shell to cassava peel adhesive of 75%:25%, while the lowest value is in v3 with a ratio of coconut shell to cassava peel adhesive of 65%:35%. however, the values of the three densities are not much different, but the treatment value in v1 shows the results of better briquette density compared to other variations. this is due to the amount of adhesive that meets the void ratio formed by the particle size of 40 mesh. high pressure can also increase the density value. it follows the research conducted by sunardi et al. (2019) about the characteristics of corncob briquettes with a pressure of 44.80 kg/cm3 and a particle size of 60 mesh, which produces a higher density level than corncob briquettes using a pressure of 22.42 kg/cm3 with a particle size of 40 mesh. consequently, the adhesive will tend to fill the surface of the charcoal as the bonds between the molecules of the charcoal become stronger, reducing the cavity filled with water or air (satya, raju, praveena, & jyothi, 2014). therefore, the higher the density value of the briquettes, the smaller the cavity and the rate of combustion is slower (haryanti, wardhana, & suryajaya, 2020). furthermore, in statistical analysis using the one-way anova method to determine the effect of variations in the composition of coconut shell charcoal and cassava peel waste, it is known that the p-value is <0.05, representing that the composition affects the density value of the briquettes. in the post hoc tukey analysis, it is also known that each variable v1, v2, and v3 is significantly different from each other, as shown in table 5. 3.2 moisture content briquettes have hygroscopic properties or easily absorb water, which shows that the value of water content needs to be considered because it can affect the quality of the briquettes produced. in this case, the moisture content of coconut shell briquettes with cassava peel adhesive ranged from 5.51-7.85%, as presented in figure 3. figure 3 shows that the highest water content was obtained in treatment v3 at 7.85%, while the lowest water content was found in v1 at 5.51%. treatment v1 with a ratio of coconut shell to cassava peel adhesive of 75%:25% had better briquette quality than other variations. fig. 3 moisture content of coconut shell briquettes with cassava peel adhesive table 6 moisture content analysis using the tukey method with 95% confidence variation n mean grouping v3 3 7.8525 a v2 3 6.503 b v1 3 5.511 c this is due to the low water content, and the cassava peel adhesive that blends with coconut shell charcoal will be tighter because its pores become smaller. the high and low water content produced can be influenced by the type and percentage of adhesive used to manufacture briquettes (kong, loh, bachmann, rahim, & salimon, 2014). the addition of more adhesive causes the water contained in the adhesive to enter the pores of the charcoal (permatasari & utami, 2015) based on figure 3, it can be seen that the smaller the percentage of adhesive used, the smaller the water content, which means the quality of the briquettes produced will be better. this is in line with the research by maryono et al. (2013) about the quality of coconut shell charcoal briquettes with the addition of higher levels of starch adhesive will produce higher water content as well. the maximum moisture content of charcoal briquettes is 8%, according to sni 01-6235-2000. in this case, the water content in each treatment has met the sni standard because it is below 8%, indicating that the coconut shell briquettes with cassava peel adhesive are suitable for alternative fuels. however, the p-value of the one-way anova test is <0.05, which indicates that the variation in the composition of coconut shell charcoal with cassava peel waste affects the value of the resulting water content. moreover, the post hoc tukey's analysis results show that each variation v1, v2, and v3 is significantly different, as shown in table 6. 3.3 ash content ash content is one of the references to determine the quality of briquettes. ash content can affect the calorific value and carbon. the ash content produced in this study ranged from 1.50-2.86%. the results of the ash content test are presented in figure 4. fig. 4 ash content of coconut shell briquettes with cassava peel adhesive table 7 ash content analysis using the tukey method with 95% confidence variation n mean grouping v3 3 2.8579 a v2 3 2.6569 a v1 3 1.501 b 5.51 6.50 7.85 0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00 9.00 v1 (75%:25%) v2 (70%:30%) v3 (65%:35%) m o is tu r e c o n te n t (% ) 1.50 2.66 2.86 0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 v1 (75%:25%) v2 (70%:30%) v3 (65%:35%) a s h c o n te n t (% ) b. rudiyanto et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 270-276 |274 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore v3 produced the highest ash content with a ratio of coconut shell to cassava peel adhesive of 65%:35%. in contrast, the lowest ash content was obtained in v1 at 1.50%, with a ratio of coconut shell to cassava peel adhesive of 75%:25%. the amount of adhesive applied can influence the high and low levels of ash produced (hasan et al., 2017; modolo et al., 2015). ash content affects the heating value and carbon content. the lower the ash content, the higher the calorific value and the fixed carbon content in the briquettes (lu et al., 2019; román gómez, cabanzo hernández, guerrero, & mejía-ospino, 2018; todaro, rita, cetera, & d’auria, 2015). in addition, the content of inorganic materials in adhesives, such as silica (sio2), mgo, fe2o3, a1f3, mgd3, and fe, can also increase the ash content of briquettes (haryanti et al., 2020). based on these findings, it can be shown that the ash content increases as the adhesive content increases. this is similar to maryono et al. (2013), where the ash content of coconut shell briquettes increased with cassava peel adhesive applied. the higher ash content in briquettes can reduce the calorific value and combustion rate, preventing air voids from penetrating the furnace (sunardi et al., 2019). the maximum permissible ash content in sni 01.6235.2000 is 8%, while the ash content produced in this study ranges from 1.50-2.86%. it shows that the briquettes produced had good quality. the composition of the comparison of coconut shell with cassava peel adhesive is best produced by v1. it has the lowest ash content compared to other variations. the one-way anova analysis obtained a pvalue <0.05, it can be seen that the composition of coconut shell charcoal and cassava peel waste affects the ash content results. furthermore, in the post hoc tukey analysis, it is known that the variations v2 and v3 are not significantly different from each other, while the variations of v1 are significantly different from each other with v2 and v3, as shown in table 7. 3.4 combustion rate five briquettes were used to heat 700 ml of water using three iterations of each variation in the combustion rate test to measure the rate of briquette combustion starting at the speed of the briquette flame. the calculation of the briquette burning rate result in this study ranged from 0.021-0.026 gram/s, as shown in figure 5. fig. 5 combustion rate of coconut shell briquettes with cassava peel adhesive table 8 combustion rate analysis using the tukey method with 95% confidence variation n mean grouping v1 3 0.071000 a v2 3 0.063000 b v3 3 0.058000 c the fastest burning rate is produced by v1 at 0.026 gram/s, while v3 has the slowest burning rate at 0.021 gram/s. figure 5 shows that the percentage ratio of the adhesive composition can affect the rate of combustion produced. this is in line with syarief et al. (2021), that the higher the percentage of adhesive added, the slower the burning rate, and vice versa. the high percentage of adhesive addition will make the granules on the briquettes stick firmly. it makes the briquette pores smaller and difficult for air to enter to speed up the combustion process. comparison of the composition of the variations of the resulting material did not differ much, but the v1 showed better briquette results than other variations. this is due to the faster rate of combustion, which makes it easier for the briquettes to ignite and burn away without producing a lot of smoke. the v1 shows a more effective and efficient result to be used as an alternative fuel. the results from the one-way anova analysis obtained a p-value <0.05. this indicates that the composition of coconut shell charcoal and cassava peel waste affects the rate of combustion that occurs in briquettes. based on the results of post hoc tukey analysis, it is known that the respective variations of v1, v2, and v3 are significantly different from each other, as shown in table 8. 3.5 calorific value the calorific value is the main parameter in determining the quality of briquettes. the calorific value produced in this study ranged from 6,161 to 6,266 cal/gram. the results of the heat test using the ika © 2000 bomb calorimeter are shown in figure 6. figure 6 shows that the highest calorific value produced by v1 is 6,266 cal/gram, while v3 of 6,161 cal/gram has the lowest calorific value. the higher the calorific value, the better the quality of the briquettes (haryanti et al., 2020). the calorific value is related to the amount of water and ash in the briquettes. the percentage of adhesive given influences the amount of water and ash produced. the higher the adhesive added, the higher the water and ash produced. thus, the calorific value created is low and vice versa (sulistyaningkarti and utami, 2017). in this case, the results of the one-way anova analysis show the p-value >0.05. it can be seen that the composition of coconut shell charcoal and cassava peel waste does not affect the resulting calorific value. based on these results, a post hoc tukey analysis is not required. the minimum standard calorific value of briquettes, according to sni 01-6235-2000, is 5,000 cal/gram. however, the calorific value of briquettes in v1, v2, and v3, as shown in figure 6, they have a value of over 5,000 cal/gram. the highest calorific value was shown by v1 of 6,266 cal/gram with the coconut shell and cassava peel adhesive ratio at 75%:25%. this is influenced by the value of water content and ash content. moreover, the briquettes produced by v1 offer better quality than other variations. fig. 6 calorific value of coconut shell briquettes with cassava peel adhesive 0.071 0.063 0.058 0.000 0.010 0.020 0.030 0.040 0.050 0.060 0.070 0.080 v1 (75%:25%) v2 (70%:30%) v3 (65%:35%) c o m b u s ti o n r a te (g r a m /s ) 6266 6234 6161 6000 6050 6100 6150 6200 6250 6300 6350 v1 (75%:25%) v2 (70%:30%) v3 (65%:35%) c a lo r if ic v a lu e (c a l/ g r a m ) b. rudiyanto et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 270-276 |275 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore in this study, v1, with a composition of 75% coconut shell and 25% cassava peel adhesive, is the best composition in terms of 4 parameters: density, moisture content, ash content, and calorific value. this is as a result that applying too much adhesive can reduce the briquettes' quality. therefore the addition of adhesive must be carried out appropriately (saputra at. al, 2021). however, the best result for the combustion rate is sample v2, with a composition of 65%:35%, but this is not very influential because the difference in the combustion rate between v1 and v2 has a slight difference. 4. conclusion based on the research results, it can be seen that the use of coconut shells as raw material for briquettes has an excellent ability to become a renewable energy source in the form of biomass. in this case, the percentage variation of adhesive material such as cassava peel can produce characteristics as fuel for alternative energy sources. it can be seen that the v1 treatment with a ratio of coconut shell with cassava peel adhesive of 75%:25% can produce charcoal briquettes that have better quality than other variations, with a density value of 0.66 gram/cm3, water content of 5.51%, ash content of 1.50%, combustion rate of 0.026 gram/s and calorific value of 6,266 cal/gram. the one-way anova analysis shows that the composition of coconut shell charcoal and cassava peel waste affects the resulting density, moisture content, ash content, and burning rate. in this case, the heating value is not affected by variations in the composition of the raw materials. however, charcoal briquettes from coconut shell waste and natural adhesives from cassava peel waste are feasible to be used as alternative fuels because of their economic value, easy to obtain, abundantly available, and have complied with sni 01-62352000. besides, further identification of the starch content in cassava peel, volatile matter content and carbon content in briquettes is required to improve research findings and develop solutions using alternative energy sources with higher quality and more environmentally friendly. this is because the natural adhesive content can reduce the calorific value of briquettes. the addition of adhesive is carried out without a carbonization process, and it is necessary to analyze the value of volatile matter and fixed carbon. considering their ability to marge, it is important to know the volatile and fixed carbon content. moreover, if the volatile content is too high and the fixed carbon is too low, it will significantly affect the decrease in the heating value of the briquettes. author contributions: br; supervision, resources, project administration, ira; conceptualization, original draft, zu; methodology, dap; formal analysis, mh; writing—review and editing, project administration, bp; supervision, validation, tp: supervision, validation —. all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. conflicts of interest: the authors declare no conflict of interest. references abyaz, a., afra, e., & saraeyan, a. 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(2022). biomass waste as a renewable energy in developing bio-based economies in indonesia: a review. renewable and sustainable energy reviews, 160(5), 112268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2022.112268 © 2023. the author(s). this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution-sharealike 4.0 (cc by-sa) international license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajce.2022.08.009 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40974-020-00148-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04574 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crgsc.2021.100083 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biteb.2021.100772 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2014.07.107 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2019.116150 https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899x/1122/1/012079 https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202132808008 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuproc.2014.09.015 https://doi.org/10.3390/en13051060 https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1080/1/012024 https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1080/1/012024 https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/462/1/012057 https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/462/1/012057 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2018.04.040 https://www.ijera.com/papers/vol4_issue3/version%201/ct4301553559.pdf https://www.ijera.com/papers/vol4_issue3/version%201/ct4301553559.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuproc.2020.106561 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.133744 https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1280/2/022072 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2014.09.060 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.133 https://doi.org/10.3390/en13133390 https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899x/1228/1/012019 https://doi.org/10.1080/19338244.2021.1936437 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2022.112268 international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023, 12 (4), 702-710 |702 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.51314 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id development of biobr/tio2 nanotubes electrode for conversion of nitrogen to ammonia in a tandem photoelectrochemical cell under visible light prita amelia and jarnuzi gunlazuardi* department of chemistry, faculty of mathematics and natural sciences, university of indonesia, indonesia abstract. ammonia (nh3) is one of the important chemicals for human life. the demand for ammonia is expected to increase every year. conventionally, the fixation process of n2 to produce nh3 in the industrial sector is carried out through the haber−bosch process, which requires extreme temperature and pressure conditions that consume a high amount of energy and emit a considerable amount of co2. therefore, it is necessary to develop alternative technology to produce ammonia using environmentally friendly methods. many studies have developed the photoelectrochemical conversion of nitrogen to ammonia in the presence of semiconductor materials, but the resulting efficiency is still not as expected. in this research, the development of the tandem system of dye-sensitized solar cell photoelectrochemistry (dssc pec) was carried out for the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia. the dssc cell was prepared using n719/tio2 nanotubes as photoanode, pt/fto as cathode, and electrolyte i/i3-. the dssc efficiency produced in this research was 1.49%. pec cell at the cathode and anode were prepared using biobr/tio2 nanotubes synthesized by the silar (successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction) method. the resulting ammonia levels were analyzed using the phenate method. in this study, ammonia levels were obtained at 0.1272 µmol for 6 hours of irradiation with an scc (solar to chemical conversion) percentage of 0.0021%. keywords: ammonia, biobr/tio2 nanotubes, dssc, nitrogen fixation, photo-electrochemistry @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 29th dec 2022; revised: 26th march 2023; accepted: 27th may 2023; available online: 23rd june 2023 1. introduction ammonia (nh3) has a significant role in human life, including in industry and agriculture (lan et al., 2021). ammonia is used as the main raw material in a variety of chemical products, such as fertilizers, nitric acid, and freezing agents (feng et al., 2021). in addition, nh3 is an essential material for hydrogen storage with a high-energy hydrogen layer and is environmentally friendly. the global output of ammonia is about 15 billion tons per year (huang et al., 2021). one important source of ammonia is the nitrogen (n2) atmosphere (cao et al. 2018). although about 78% of the earth's atmosphere contains nitrogen, most organisms find its molecular form unusable due to the non-polar covalent triple bonds of nn. this bond is highly resistant to dissociation and has a high ionization energy and negative electron affinity. traditionally, the industrial fixation of n2 to nh3 was carried out via the haber−bosch process, which requires extreme conditions (400–600oc, 20–40 mpa) in the presence of an ironbased catalyst to overcome the kinetic limitations (wang et al., 2022). this process involves about 2% of the world's energy supply and emits 2.3 tons of co2 annually. in addition, the hydrogen gas used to synthesize nh3 is mainly produced from the reformation of methane vapor, which requires about 3−5 % of the world's annual natural gas production and emits large * corresponding author email: jarnuzi@ui.ac.id (j. gunlazuardi) amounts of co2 (li et al., 2015). given the shortage of fossil fuels and global climate change, a fixation process of nitrogen that requires less energy consumption is required for long-term goals. the catalytic process that produces nh3 from n2 at room temperature and atmospheric pressure is a promising method for the sustainable, safe, and clean synthesis of nh3 (olabi et al., 2023). the photo-electrocatalytic reaction to convert n2 to nh3 has attracted a lot of attention due to the availability of light energy, making it more environmentally friendly and energy efficient. many researchers have developed photo-electrocatalytic techniques using semiconductor materials to utilize solar energy (humayun et al., 2018). one of the semiconductor materials that has been widely developed is tio2 because it is relatively efficient, inexpensive, inert, non-toxic, and has good photocatalytic activity (hoang et al., 2021). however, the use of tio2 with relatively large band gap energy (3.0 ev for the rutile phase and 3.2 ev for the anatase phase) requires ultraviolet (uv) light for electron-hole separation, so tio2 is not efficient in sunlight, which only contains ~5% uv light (moghni et al., 2022). therefore, it is very important to develop photocatalysts that can be used in both visible light (400-700 nm) and ultraviolet (uv) light (290-400 nm) to increase photo-electrocatalytic efficiency. research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.51314 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.51314 mailto:jarnuzi@ui.ac.id https://orcid.org/0009-0008-7497-7603 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5991-7110 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.51314&domain=pdf p. amelia and j.gunlazuardi int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 702-710 | 703 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore several modifications that can be made to increase the photo-electrocatalytic activity of tio2 in visible light are doping with metal and non-metallic elements, deposition with noble metals, combining other semiconductor materials to form heterojunctions and surface modification with inorganic acids (zhang et al., 2016). on the other hand, bismuth-based semiconductor materials have been widely developed for fixing nitrogen into ammonia because they show good activity as photocatalysts (huang et al., 2021). shiraishi et al. (2020) developed a bismuth oxyhalide semiconductor [biox (x = cl, br, i)] with the consideration that biox is a non-toxic, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly semiconductor (shiraishi et al., 2020). on the other hand, tio2 has a high conduction band, so a semiconductor with an appropriate conduction band position is required. biobr is a semiconductor that responds to visible light and has a more negative conduction band than tio2. the use of biobr has attracted attention in composites with tio2, as this facilitates the injection of electrons from the conduction band of biobr into tio2 and reduces the recombination of photoelectrons and holes. (jia et al., 2018). in this research, a tandem system of dye-sensitized solar cell (dssc) and photo-electrochemical (pec) cell was developed for the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia, aiming to reduce electrical energy consumption. the pec cell served as a reaction site, utilizing visible light for the conversion process, while the dssc cell will provide a source of electrons. the cathode and anode in the pec cell was made of biobr/tio2 nanotubes, synthesized using the silar method (sreedev et al., 2019). biobr served as the catalyst for the photoelectrocatalytic conversion of n2 to nh3 on the cathode, while on the photoanode, biobr facilitated the efficient oxidation of h2o. the dssc zone utilized n719/tio2 nanotubes as the photoanode, pt/fto as the cathode, and electrolyte i-/i3-. this research aims to produce ammonia with good solar to ammonia efficiency using environmentally friendly methods with low energy consumption. 2. materials and methods 2.1 materials the ti plate, acetone (c3h6o), ethanol p.a (c2h5oh), ethylene glycol (c2h6o), ammonium fluoride (nh4f), bismuth nitrate pentahydrate (bi(no3)3.5h2o), ammonium chloride (nh4cl), sodium sulfate (na2so4), trisodium citrate (na3c6h5o7), sodium hypochlorite (naocl), sodium hydroxide (naoh), sodium nitroprusside (snp), sodium bromide (nabr), fto, dye n719, nafion membrane 117, phenol 99% and deionized water were purchased commercially. all materials were obtained from sigma-aldrich, except for the titanium plate (99.6% purity) obtained from baoji jinsheng metal material co. ltd and deionized water from onemed. 2.2 methods 2.2.1 preparation of tio2 nanotubes (tio2nts) the titanium plate (6 cm x 1.5 cm x 0.02 cm) was cleaned through a sonication process at room temperature in acetone, ethanol, and water for 15 minutes each, then dried in air. all anodization experiments were carried out in an electrochemical cell of two electrodes. a ti plate and stainless steel were used as the anode and cathode, respectively. an ethylene glycol solution containing 2% h2o and 0.3% nh4f was used as the electrolyte. the distance between the two electrodes was set at about 1.5 cm. the anodization process was performed for 60 minutes at a potential of 40 v. after the anodization process, the sample was rinsed with deionized water and dried in the open air, then calcined for 2 hours at 450oc with a temperature increase rate of 5oc/minute (surahman et al., 2015). 2.2.2 preparation of biobr/tio2 nanotubes (biobr/tio2nts) biobr/tio2nts were prepared by the silar (successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction) method, where 5 mm bi(no3)3⋅5h2o and 5 mm nabr were dissolved in 100 ml of 0,1 m mannitol solution and deionized water, respectively. tio2nts were first immersed in bi-solution for 1 minute, followed by rinsing with deionized water, then immersed in br-solution for 1 minute, followed by rinsing with deionized water again. these experiments were carried out in a 40oc water bath to produce a depositing of biobr onto tio2nts (ma et al., 2021). the abovementioned process is called one cycle of the silar process and was repeated 5, 10, and 10 times. this variation silar cycle was denoted as biobr/tio2nts (5), biobr/tio2nts (10), and biobr/tio2nts (15), respectively. 2.2.3 preparation of dye-sensitized solar cell (dssc) there are three main components in dssc, and those are n719/tio2nts, pt/fto, and i-/i3that were used as photoanode, cathode, and electrolyte solution, respectively. for n719/tio2nts preparation, tio2nts was immersed in 300 µm n719 dye solution (ethanol solvent) for 24 hours. after 24 hours of immersion, the n719 sensitized tio2nts plate was cleaned with ethanol and dried in the air. for pt/fto preparation, the fto glass (4 x 1.5 cm) was cleaned by sonication in ethanol for 10 minutes. the conducting part of the fto glass dripped slowly with 20 mm h2ptcl6 solution in ethanol, dried in the open air, and then heated at 380℃ for 30 minutes (neetu et al., 2017). the i-/i3electrolyte solution was prepared by dissolving 0.13 g of i2 crystals in a mixed solvent of 5 ml ethylene glycol and 20 ml acetonitrile, then adding 0.18 g of ki continuing by stirring for 30 minutes (gu et al., 2017). the arrangement of the dssc cells followed a sandwich cell configuration, where electrolyte i-/i3was dripped on the surface of the photoanode (n719/tio2nts), then parafilm was placed as a separator between the photoanode and cathode to avoid short circuit current, and then closed with a cathode (pt/fto). the photovoltaic performance of the dssc was investigated by current–voltage (j–v) measurement under 40 watt phillips tungsten lamp as the source of visible light. by doing this measurement, a graph of current vs. potential was obtained. as the material was in the form of a plate, the current density was determined by dividing the measured current by the surface area of the plate that was immersed in the electrolyte. furthermore, the filling factor (ff) and  (% efficiency of dssc) were calculated using the following equation (chougala et al., 2017): 𝐹𝐹 = 𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 × 𝐽𝑚𝑎𝑥 𝑉𝑜𝑐×𝐽𝑠𝑐 (1) 𝜂 (% 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦) = 𝐹𝐹 ×𝐽𝑠𝑐×𝑉𝑜𝑐 𝐼0 × 100% (2) where jsc = short circuit current density, jmax = maximum power point current density, voc = open circuit voltage, and vmax = maximum power point voltage. p. amelia and j.gunlazuardi int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 702-710 | 704 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 2.2.4 electrochemical cell measurement the preparation of the photo-electrochemical cell was carried out using a 3-electrode system potentiostat. the working electrodes were tio2nts, biobr/tio2nts, and n719/tio2nts, while the counter electrode was pt and the reference electrode was ag/agcl. a 40 watt phillips tungsten lamp was used as the source of visible light. electrochemical measurement for tio2nts and biobr/tio2nts was carried out using 0.1 m na2so4 electrolyte, and n719/tio2nts was carried out using 0.01 m ki electrolyte in acetylacetone. measurements were conducted using two methods, those are linear sweep voltammetry (lsv) with a scan rate of 25 mv/s and multi pulsed amperometry (mpa) with a constant potential of 0 v in dark and light conditions. 2.2.5 preparation of the tandemsystem of dssc-pec for the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia was carried out in an h-type reactor connected with a nafion membrane. biobr/tio2nts served as the photoanode in the pec cell for the water oxidation reaction to produce proton and electron. this electron will flow to the dssc cathode (pt/fto). meanwhile, the dssc photoanode (n719/tio2nts) acted as a source of electrons to the pec cathode, where the reduction reaction of nitrogen to ammonia takes place, using biobr/tio2nts as well. the pec photoanode and dssc cathode, as well as the dssc photoanode and pec cathode, were connected with cu wires to facilitate the electron flow, as illustrated in figure 1. philips 400 watt tungsten lamp was used as a source of visible light radiation. the electrolyte used in the reactor was 0.1 m na2so4 solution with a reaction time of 6 hours. the nh3 gas formed was absorbed in a 0.01 m hcl solution to form nh4+ and then analyzed using spectrophotometric methods through phenate methods. ammonia levels were determined using the phenate method with a uv-visible spectrophotometer at a wavelength of 640 nm which refers to sni 06-6989.30-2005. samples containing ammonia will form a blue indophenol complex when reacted with phenol, alkaline citrate solution (trisodium citrate, naoh, and naocl), and sodium nitroprusside. a total of 5 ml of sample or standard solution of nh4cl at various concentrations was added 0.2 ml of phenol solution; 0.2 ml nitroprusside; and 0.5 ml of oxidizing reagent (alkaline citrate solution), then homogenized and stored in a dark place for 2 hours. then a blue color was formed and measured using a uvvisible spectrophotometer at a wavelength of 640 nm. furthermore, the percent efficiency of conversion to ammonia was calculated using the solar to chemical conversion (scc) equation as follows (shiraishi et al., 2018): 𝑆𝐶𝐶 𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 (%) = [∆𝐺 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑁𝐻3𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 (𝐽𝑚𝑜𝑙 − 1)] × [𝑁𝐻3𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑑 (𝑚𝑜𝑙)] [𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑛𝑝𝑢𝑡 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 (𝑊)] × [𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 (𝑠)] × 100% (3) where g is the free energy of ammonia formation from nitrogen gas and water, which is 399 kj/mol. 2.3 characterization tio2nts and biobr/tio2nts were characterized using xrd (x'pert pro merk panalitycal mpd paw3040/60), ftir (shimadzu ir prestige 21), raman microscopes (horiba the labram hr evolution), uv-vis drs (shimadzu uv-2450), sem-edx (quanta 650 of thermo scientific), and potentiostat (par-versastat ii). while n719/tio2nts was characterized using ftir, uv-vis drs, and potentiostat. characterization of xrd was used to determine the crystallite size of the synthesized material. the crystallite size was estimated using the fwhm (full width at half maximum) of the high intensity peak appearing at 2θ = 25.31° (101) using the scherer formula (alkorbi et al., 2022): 𝐷 = 𝑘𝜆 𝛽𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜃 (4) where d is the crystallite size (nm), k is a constant with the value of 0.89, λ is the x-ray wavelength (nm), θ is the bragg angle (radians), and β is the fwhm (radians). meanwhhile, the characterization using uv-vis drs was used to determine the energy band gap value. the energy band gap was determined by using the diffuse reflectance spectra and the kubelka-munk method according to the following equation (garzon-roman et al., 2020), 𝐹(𝑅) = (1 − 𝑅)2 2𝑅 (5) where r is the diffuse reflectance. in this case, f(r) becomes an absorbance function, and the following equation was used to determine the bandgap: (𝐹(𝑅)ℎ𝑣) 1 2 𝑣𝑠 𝐸 (6) 3. results and discussion 3.1 anodic oxidation of tio2nts figure 2 shows the three stages of the formation of tio2nts, the first stage (i) shows a very sharp decrease in current density from 22.2 ma/cm2 to 4.48 ma/cm2 in 50 seconds. the decrease in current is due to the oxidation of the ti metal surface by releasing ti4+ ions and electrons, which causes the formation of a tio2 oxide layer on the ti metal surface. in this case, there was an interaction between water and oxidized ti metal (broens et al., 2023). the tio2 oxide layer that was formed electrochemically acts as a barrier layer and obstructs the flow fig. 1 the schematic diagram of the dssc-pec cell for conversion of nitrogen to ammonia p. amelia and j.gunlazuardi int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 702-710 | 705 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore of ions and electrons so that the potential between titanium metal and the electrolyte decreases, which is indicated by a decrease in current during the anodization process (qian et al., 2022). according to (indira et al., 2015), the reactions that occur in the first stage (stage i) are as follows: oxidation of ti: ti → ti4+ + 4e− (7) oxide layer formation: ti4+ + 2h2o → tio2 + 4h + (8) in stage ii, the current increased from 4.48 ma/cm2 to 7.11 ma/cm2 within 40 seconds. the increase in current was caused by forming small holes and pores in the tio2 oxide layer through electric field dissolution reactions and chemical dissolution so that the anode was more conducive (qin et al., 2021). small holes in the oxide layer were formed due to an electric field breaking the ti and o bonds. the oxide layer with pinholes reacted with f(fluoride) ions and caused the current density to increase, as seen in stage ii. this stage produced a porous oxide layer with a particular size and depth. the reaction of fions with the oxide layer produced a complex compound [tif6]2 with the following reaction (indira et al., 2015): 𝑇𝑖𝑂2 + 6𝐹 − + 4𝐻+ → [𝑇𝑖𝐹6] 2− + 2𝐻2𝑂 (9) in stage iii, there was a relatively stable decrease in current density. as the anodization time increased, the current decreased slightly due to the change in the pore depth of the holes formed. the pore growth rate and nanotube length were determined by the competition between electrochemical oxide formation and chemical dissolution by fluoride ions (yoo et al., 2018). this process produced a structure of vertically growing nanotubes. the tio2 material formed from the anodization process was amorphous. next, a calcination process was carried out at 450oc for 2 hours to change from the amorphous phase to the anatase phase (fang et al., 2011). 3.2 xrd patterns, structure, and morphology observations figure 3 shows the diffractogram of tio2nts and biobr/ tio2nts. the 2θ value of the synthesized material was compared with the icdd database. based on icdd data no. 01089-4921 the typical peak of anatase tio2 is at position 25.36° ; 37.85° ; 48.15° ; 53.97° ; 55.19° ; 62.81° ; 68.88° ; 74.18° ; 75.21° ; 76.22°. based on icdd data no. 00-044-1294 the typical peak of ti metal is at position 35.09° ; 38.42° ; 40.17° ; 53.01° ; 70.66° ; 82.29° ; 86.76° ; 92.73°. the typical peak produced by the synthesized material shows the peak according to the icdd data. so, it can be known that the crystalline phase formed on the synthesized tio2nts is the anatase phase. the estimated crystallite size of tio2nts calculated using equation (4) was 26.23 nm. in the biobr/tio2nts diffraction pattern, several additional peaks were observed compared to the tio2nts diffraction pattern. based on icdd data with reference code 00-003-0733, there are additional peaks at positions 2θ of 32.41°, 46.53°, 53.55°, and 57.56° respectively, according to the crystal plane (1 1 0), (2 0 0), (2 1 1), and (2 1 2) in the tetragonal phase of biobr (yu et al., 2023). as the silar cycle increased, the peak observed at position 2θ became clearer. in this case, the 15cycle treatment showed a peak of 2θ for biobr, which was clearer than the 5 and 10-cycle treatments. this is because the more cycle variations, the more biobr will be deposited on the surface of tio2nts so that more dominant biobr facets will be formed compared to fewer cycles. figure 4 shows the ftir spectra of tio2nts and biobr/tio2nts to analyze functional groups. based on the ftir spectra, there were five main absorptions in biobr/tio2nts. ti-o stretching vibrations could be shown at 455-861 cm-1, ti-o-ti stretching vibrations at 1630 cm-1 (singh & dutta, 2018), oh bending vibrations at 1437-1600 cm-1, oh stretching vibrations at 3000-3612 cm-1, and bi-o stretching vibration at 512 cm-1 (mera et al., 2018). figure 5 shows the raman spectra of biobr/tio2nts compared to tio2nts. it could be observed that there are several peaks which are typical peaks of anatase tio2 at raman shifts of 147, 197, 395, 517, and 637 cm-1, which correspond respectively to eg(1), eg(2), b1g, a1g and eg(3) for the anatase phase mode. the eg mode could appear due to the o–ti–o fig. 2 current density profile of tio2nts formations fig. 3 xrd patterns of tio2nts and biobr/tio2nts fig. 4 ftir spectra of tio2nts and biobr/tio2nts p. amelia and j.gunlazuardi int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 702-710 | 706 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore symmetrical stretching vibration, the b1g mode was assigned to the o–ti–o symmetric bending vibration, and the a1g mode corresponded to the ti–o–ti antisymmetric bending vibration in tio2. these results were consistent with research conducted by (boda & shah, 2017) which showed that the raman spectra of tio2nts could be observed in the range of 245 – 351cm−1 which corresponds to the covalent interaction of o–o. the active mode at 147 and 197 cm−1 were assigned to the unit cell's ti interaction. the strongest mode that appears at 147 cm−1 is due to external symmetrical vibrations confirming the anatase phase's formation. in addition, there was an additional peak at 125 cm-1 which corresponds to the a1g stretching vibration of the bi–br bond. based on the literature (wang et al., 2016), three characteristic bands in biobr could be observed at 112, 162, and 385 cm−1 which correspond respectively to the a1g internal stretching vibration of the bi−br bond, the eg internal stretching vibration of the bi−br bond and the b1g band generated by the vibration oxygen atom from the bi-o bond. however, in the results of this study, only the a1g band could be clearly observed in the raman spectra of biobr/tio2nts, while the two characteristic bands could not be observed clearly. this might be caused by the two other bands overlapping with the characteristic raman band of tio2nts, whose intensity was very strong so that the characteristic band of biobr/tio2nts could not be observed clearly. sem images of biobr/tio2nts (figure 6a) show the morphology of the surface of biobr/tio2nts (15) at 100,000x magnification. based on these results, it could be observed that tio2 was formed with nanotube morphology deposited by biobr on the surface, which is marked by a white color on the surface of tio2nts, and the tube of tio2nts was still visible. this result shows that the deposition of biobr on the surface of tio2nts did not block the mouth of the tube. figure 6(b) shows the morphology of the biobr/tio2nts cross-section with a magnification of 15,000 times showing a tube height of 4.4 µm and it could be observed that the cross section showed several small particles indicating the biobr compound. in addition to characterization using sem, characterization was also carried out using edx which aims to determine the composition of each constituent element. figure 7(a) shows the point edx spectra of biobr/tio2nts (15). these results indicated the presence of bi and br elements, in addition to ti and o from tio2 compounds which allows the formation of biobr on the surface of tio2. figure 7(b) shows the edx mapping of biobr/tio2nts (15) indicating that the elements bi, o, br, and ti have been formed and distributed evenly. 3.3 optical absorption and photo-electrochemical performance figure 8 shows the results of the characterization using uvdrs. the more silar cycles indicate a shift in the wavelength absorption toward the visible region. for biobr/tio2nts (15), biobr/tio2nts (10), and biobr/tio2nts (5) the uv–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (drs) spectra present a slight red shift of adsorption edge and a higher visible light absorbance. the kubelka-munk model, presented in equation (5), was used to estimate the band gap energy of all samples by plotting (f(r)ℎv)1/2 versus the energy of absorbed light (landi et al., 2022). the band gap energy values obtained for tio2nts fig. 5 raman spectra of tio2nts and biobr/tio2nts fig. 6 sem images of biobr/tio2nts 15 silar cycles (a) surface with 100,000x magnification and (b) cross section with 15,000x magnification fig. 7 edx point (a) and mapping (b) of biobr/tio2nts p. amelia and j.gunlazuardi int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 702-710 | 707 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore was 3,20 ev, and for each variation of biobr/tio2nts, were 2.96 ev, 2.94 ev, and 2.92 ev, respectively for 5x, 10x, and 15x cycles of silar process. these results indicated that the more silar cycles, the more biobr would be deposited on the tio2nts surface, making it more active under visible light. this was indicated by shifting the absorption to the visible region and the decrease in the band gap energy, which becomes smaller. figure 9 shows electrochemical performance results using the lsv and mpa methods. under visible light irradiation, measurements using the lsv method were carried out over a potential range of -1v to +1v. these results indicated that the deposition of biobr on the surface of tio2nts could increase the resulting current density compared to tio2nts without adding biobr (figure 9a). the highest current density was produced in biobr/tio2nts (15), with a variation of 15x silar cycles, because more biobr might be deposited on the surface of tio2nts. as a result, the current density was higher in irradiation using visible lamps compared to 5 and 10 cycles. figure 9(b) shows the measurement results using the mpa method on biobr/tio2nts within 100 seconds in dark and light conditions alternately with a duration of 10 seconds for each condition. these results indicated that when the biobr/tio2nts were irradiated using a visible lamp, there was an increase in current density, and when the visible light was turned off, there was a significant decrease in current density. the results of this measurement indicated that biobr/tio2nts had a higher current density response when compared to tio2nts, where biobr/tio2nts produced the highest current density with 15 silar cycles. based on measurements using the lsv and mpa methods, it shows that the deposition of biobr on the surface of tio2nts could increase the current density, which makes it active in the visible region, compared to tio2nts without modification with biobr. this result was observed because the addition of biobr could produce oxygen vacancies on the surface, increasing photocatalytic activity and exhibiting higher intensity of photocurrent. it suggests that the photo-induced hole-electron pairs in biobr are efficiently separated (wang et al., 2021). 3.4 dssc efficiency the dssc components were arranged like a sandwich structure using n719/tio2nts as the anode, pt/fto as the cathode, and i-/i3as the electrolyte solution. in addition, a parafilm spacer was used as a barrier between the anode and cathode to avoid short circuits. dssc performance was carried out using a potentiostat by connecting the anode and reference wires to the n719/tio2nts plate and the cathode wires to the pt/fto. figure 10 shows the photocurrent-to-potential curve given the irradiation conditions using a visible lamp. efficiency was determined based on data from the photocurrent-to-potential change curve. based on this curve, several parameters were obtained that could be used to calculate the filling factor and dssc efficiency, and those are short circuit current density (jsc), maximum power point current density (jmax), open circuit voltage (voc), maximum power point voltage (vmax) with the resulting values respectively 0.2028 ma/cm2, 0.1202 ma/cm2, 0.5280 v, and 0.320 v. based on the results of the calculation using equation (1) and (2), by using the total incident irradiance (i0) of 2.58 mw/cm2, fig. 8 uv-drs spectra of tio2nts and biobr/tio2nts fig. 9 electrochemical performance of tio2nts and biobr/tio2nts using (a) linear sweep voltammetry (lsv) method and (b) multi pulse amperometry (mpa) method under visible light irradiation fig. 10 photocurrent density vs. potential of dssc p. amelia and j.gunlazuardi int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 702-710 | 708 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore the ff value is 0.3592, and the dssc efficiency is 1.49%. this dssc cell will be used in a dssc-pec tandem system for the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia to increase the electrons that would be entering the catalysis zone so that more ammonia will be produced. 3.5 conversion of nitrogen to ammonia in a dssc-pec tandem system the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia was carried out in an h-type reactor that utilizes the dssc-pec system. the conversion reaction of nitrogen was a reduction reaction that occurs at the pec cathode. the pec cathode was connected to n719/tio2nts, which functions as a dssc anode for visible light harvesting. meanwhile, the pec anode was where the water oxidation reaction occurs, producing electrons (e-) and protons (h+). these electrons would go to the dssc cathode (pt/fto) through an external circuit which would later be used to reduce i3to iions in dssc. at the same time, the protons would go to the pec cathode through the nafion membrane, which would involve converting nitrogen into ammonia. in the photoanode part of the pec cell, biobr/tio2nts (15) were used, which is expected to facilitate the oxidation reaction of water into electrons (e-) and protons (h+) under visible light radiation. while at the pec cathode, biobr/tio2nts (15) were used to facilitate the conversion process of nitrogen to ammonia through the reduction reaction. the reaction is as follows: reaction at the photoanode: 2h2o (l) → o2 (g) + 4h+ + 4e (10) reaction at the cathode: n2 (g) + 6h+ + 6e→ 2nh3 (g) (11) furthermore, the resulting ammonia flowed into a glass containing 0.01 m hcl solution to produce ammonium chloride solution with the following reaction: nh3 (g) + hcl (aq) → nh4cl (aq) (12) the experiment was carried out for 6 hours, where samples were taken every 2 hours. the samples were analyzed spectrophotometrically using the phenate method. table 1 shows the amount of ammonia produced within 2, 4, and 6 hours. this data shows that the longer the irradiation time, the more ammonia will be produced. when irradiated by visible light in the anode, holes transferred from tio2 to biobr for the oxidation reaction of water, while in the cathode, electrons on biobr transferred to the tio2 surface for nitrogen fixation reaction. the photo-electrocatalytic activity of biobr/tio2nts heterojunction could be ascribed to effective interfacial interaction (wang et al., 2021). furthermore, the percent efficiency of conversion to ammonia was calculated using equation (3). the total energy input (w) is the amount of light given from the irradiation source to the active area of the dssc. the light intensity used in this study was 312.5 w/m2 with an irradiated dssc area of 0.0003 m2, so the total power input generated was 0.09375 watts. based on the calculations, the solar to chemical conversion (scc) percentage was 0.0028%, 0,0021%, and 0,0021% for a reaction time of 2, 4, and 6 hours, respectively. in comparison to hirakawa et al.'s research (2017), where the scc was reported to be 0.02%, our result is lower. this discrepancy may be due to the fact that they used tio2 in powder form, which increased the contact area between the catalyst and the reactants. they also used a higher lamp power, which excited more electrons from the valence band to the conduction band (hirakawa et al., 2017). however, our results are consistent with an'nur et al.'s (2020) research, where the scc value for ammonia production using a dssc-pec system was reported to be 0.005% after 24 hours of irradiation (an'nur et al., 2020). it should be noted that the difference in scc values between our study and an'nur et al.'s study may also be attributed to the difference in the duration of the experiment. while our study was conducted for 6 hours, an'nur et al. carried out their experiment for 24 hours. the longer duration of their experiment might have allowed for more ammonia production, leading to a higher scc value. however, despite the shorter duration of our experiment, our study still provides valuable insights into the potential use of dssc-pec systems for solardriven ammonia synthesis. 4. conclusion in summary, we have developed the combined system of dsscpec to convert nitrogen to ammonia under visible light without external input energy. biobr/tio2nts heterojunction in the pec cell was obtained through a facile synthesis using the silar method. the characterization showed that biobr was well deposited on the surface of the tio2 nanotubes to form the desired heterojunction structure. in the dssc cell, n719/tio2nts-based material converted light energy to produce active electrons to be injected into the pec cathode for nitrogen reduction. the ammonia produced was 0.1272 µmoles for 6 hours, with the percentage of scc being 0.0021%. this work provides new prospects for developing the construction of the combined system of dssc-pec using heterojunction catalysts for efficient photo-electrocatalytic nitrogen conversion to ammonia. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology, which has provided research funding through penelitian tesis magister (ptm) in 2022. author contributions: p.a.: performed the experiments and data analysis, methodology, writing—original draft, review and editing. j.g.; supervision, project administration, writing—review and editing, table 1 the amount of ammonia produced irradiation time (hour) concentration (ppm) amount of ammonia (µmol) scc (%) 2 0.0947 0.0557 0.0028 4 0.1393 0.0819 0.0021 6 0.2162 0.1272 0.0021 p. amelia and j.gunlazuardi int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 702-710 | 709 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore validation. all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. funding: this research was funded by the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology, contract number 987/un2.rst/hkp.05.00/2022. conflicts of interest: the authors declare no conflict of interest. references alkorbi, a. s., muhammad asif javed, h., hussain, s., latif, s., mahr, m. s., mustafa, m. s., alsaiari, r., & alhemiary, n. a. 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revised: 3rd feb 2023; accepted: 24th feb 2023; available online: 24th march 2023 1. introduction the rapid development and production of electric vehicles worldwide have caused a rapid increase in rechargeable battery production. this has come about because electric vehicles require an energy storage system, like a rechargeable battery, to ensure that the vehicle can operate adequately (maddu et al., 2022; thiruvonasundari & deepa, 2021). this rechargeable battery comprises various components, such as an electrode (cathode and anode), electrolyte, and separator; those components are made of various compounds, for instance, metal alloys for the electrode, organic liquid for the electrolyte (liang et al., 2019; cheng et al., 2011). one of the critical elements in producing those batteries is nickel. in rechargeable batteries, nickel, in the form of an oxide, hydroxide, or other compounds, has a role as one of the materials that compose the cathode of rechargeable batteries (ash et al., 2020; kiani et al., 2010; yan et al., 2018; zhang et al., 2018). the choice of nickel as the cathode is due to the ability to provide higher storage capacity, higher energy density, and lower cost (benayed et al., 2021; cui et al., 2021; y. liu et al., 2011; xie et al., 2019). because of the importance of nickel in producing those batteries, it is * corresponding author email: kcwanta@unpar.ac.id (k.c. wanta) necessary to pay attention to supplying nickel for the rechargeable battery industry so that there is no scarcity or shortage of nickel sources in the future. nickel can be obtained from primary and secondary mineral sources (meshram et al., 2018; wanta et al., 2020a). so far, the demand for nickel has been dominated by ore or concentrate, classified as primary mineral sources. however, a number of these major mineral sources will eventually be depleted, so the ore or concentrate will only be available temporarily. to maintain the sustainability of this nickel source, secondary mineral sources, such as spent catalysts or spent batteries, need to be utilized well (garole et al., 2020). the secondary mineral source is feasible because its metal components are still at high concentrations. for example, the nickel content in the spent catalyst amounts to 13–38% (goel et al., 2009; sheik et al., 2013; wanta et al., 2021). this value is higher than the nickel content in ore or concentrate. thus, the effort of leaching nickel from the spent catalyst has excellent potential to be carried out, especially for nickel sources in producing these rechargeable batteries. nickel sources are one of many things to consider. the method of leaching nickel from those mineral sources also research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.51353 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.51353 http://creativecommons/ mailto:kcwanta@unpar.ac.id https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5970-7712 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4619-0300 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9364-4291 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9372-0784 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4458-7845 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3780-820x http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.51353&domain=pdf t.k.m.a. panggabean et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 459-466 |460 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore needs to be observed. like the recovery of other metals, the leaching method is a proven method capable of leaching metal with nearly perfect effectiveness (esmaeili et al., 2020; meshram et al., 2016; li et al., 2015). so far, the application of this method has been dominated by using inorganic acid solvents such as sulphuric acid (hosseini et al., 2017; ucyildiz & girgin, 2017), hydrochloric acid (le & lee, 2010; oediyani et al., 2019), and nitric acid (khalid & athraa, 2017; ramos-cano et al., 2016). however, this acid type has its drawbacks, primarily related to the environmental aspects involved (astuti et al., 2016). demarco (2020) revealed that the use of inorganic acids in the metal leaching process allows the release of so3, cl2, and nox gases, which pose a risk to the environment. furthermore, the acid waste generated after leaching is also harmful to the environment (li et al., 2010). as a result, greener solvents need to be applied so that the metal leaching process will not damage the environment in the future. one of the green solvents that are feasible for application is organic acid one. organic acids are classified as mild, generally biodegradable, and generate little or no environmental pollution (pathak et al., 2020). in addition, these organic acids can be produced using biotechnology, where the production of acids is carried out through fermentation pathways with the help of microorganisms (angumeenal & venkappayya, 2013; chen & nielsen, 2016). it is the forerunner of the emergence of a biological leaching process known as bioleaching (srichandan et al., 2019). metallurgically, organic acid solvents are desirable and promising for application. the ability to remove metal ions is reasonably tested because, as an acid, this organic acid can still provide hydrogen ions which have a prominent role in the mechanism of the leaching process. in several studies that have been conducted, the performance and effectiveness of organic acids as solvents have been well-tested (golmohammadzadeh et al., 2018; wanta et al., 2022). in the metal leaching process, liu et al. (2021) have proven that organic acids can effectively leach various metals, namely mn, cd, zn, and pb, from plant combustion ashes. their study also stated that citric acid was the best solvent for that particular process. another study by astuti et al. (2022) even explicitly proved that citric acid could operate better than inorganic acids in extracting lanthanum from the spent hydroprocessing catalyst. citric acid is not the only type of organic acid that can be applied in the leaching process. several similar studies yielded effective results in metal recovery from various secondary mineral sources when formic acid (arslanoğlu & yaraş, 2019), acetic acid (behera & parhi, 2016), and edta (gaber, 2019) were applied as solvents. this study focuses on the potential of the spent catalyst as a nickel source for rechargeable batteries. more specifically, leaching metal ions for this research study employs organic acid solvents. many leaching studies like this have already been conducted. however, in the metallurgical context, differences in the characteristics of raw materials lead to different mechanisms and treatments for the leaching process. each mineral resource has a uniqueness depending on its characteristics. a catalyst is an artificial mineral resource. it means that the catalyst comprises metal in the form of elements and compounds with a different mechanism to leach the metal ion. it is impossible for the metal in the form of elements to leach directly without additive compounds. therefore, if metal elements dominate the catalyst composition, it will affect the mechanism of the leaching process. thus, the potency of this spent catalyst needs to be studied further in terms of leaching the metal ion using organic acid. this study emphasizes sustainable processes and green technology. the parameters studied are leaching time, acid type, and concentration. the operating condition of this process was conducted under operating conditions classified as a simple and safe process, such as atmospheric and low temperatures. the main objective of this research study is to observe the effect of leaching time, organic acid types (citric, oxalic, acetic, and lactic acids), and acid concentrations in recovering ni (ii) and al (iii) ions contained in the spent catalysts ni/γ-al2o3. 2. material and methods 2.1 materials the spent catalyst ni/γ-al2o3 employed as a source of metal ions in this study originated at pt. petrokimia gresik, indonesia. this company is a fertilizer manufacturer; there is a reforming unit and applied ni/γ-al2o3 catalyst in that production. as a solvent, this leaching process applied four types of organic acids, namely citric acid (merck), oxalic acid (merck), acetic acid (merck), and lactic acid (merck). in addition, for analytical purposes, eriochrome cyanine r (ecr, merck) and dimethylglyoxime (dmg, merck) were used as complexing agents. all chemicals were dissolved using demineralized water. the spent catalyst was analyzed using an x-ray fluorescence (xrf, epsilon xle panalytical) instrument to determine the metal composition contained in the catalyst. the results of the analysis are presented in table 1. this table shows that there are three elements, namely aluminium (al), nickel (ni), and calcium (ca), which are the elements that dominate as well as compose this spent catalyst. these three elements in the catalyst are clearly visible in the mineral phases. mineral phase testing was also conducted by analyzing the spent catalyst using an x-ray diffraction instrument (xrd, bruker d8 advance, germany). the test results are presented in fig. 1. basically, this figure confirms the results of the xrf analysis and generates information about the mineral phase contained in the catalyst. the results of these characteristics still show that al, ni, and ca dominate the mineral phase contained. other components in table 1 define various heavy metals contained in the spent catalyst, such as titanium (ti), vanadium (v), zinc (zn), gallium (ga), strontium (sr), yttrium (y), zirconium (zr), molybdenum (mo), tellurium (te), and iridium (ir). the concentration of those elements is in part per million (ppm). this catalyst forms nickel in the pure nickel (nio) and nickel oxide (nio) crystalline phase. this leaching process is carried out without the use of additives that act as oxidizing agents. thus, the nickel that can be leached only comes from the mineral nio phase. fig. 1 xrd analysis results on the spent catalyst (raw material) t.k.m.a. panggabean et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 459-466 |461 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore table 1 xrf analysis results on the spent catalyst (raw material) component composition, %wt aluminium (al) 38.2 nickel (ni) 37.7 calcium (ca) 22.6 phosphorus (p) 0.4 iron (fe) 0.4 potassium (k) 0.2 silicon (si) 0.2 others 0.3 in the nio phase, nickel will not be leached in this process because the characteristic of the phase is stable and cannot be dissolved in water. nickel can only dissolve in water in the form of ni (ii) ions. this form will be produced from nio compounds that react with hydrogen ions from acids. meanwhile, for aluminium, the dominant form of aluminium that will react is aluminium oxide (al2o3). this compound will react with hydrogen ions from acids and produce al (iii) ions, which dissolve in water. 2.2 procedures this leaching process was carried out using a set of equipment consisting of a 1 l glass bottle (as an extractor), a horizontal shaker incubator, and a sampler. first, the spent catalyst was milled and sieved to obtain the spent catalyst powder with a size of less than 149 microns. seventy grams of spent catalyst powder were put into the extractor and mixed with 700 ml of the organic acid solution. after that, the extractor was conditioned on a shaker and was operated at 140 rpm. this leaching process was conducted at room temperature. the four types of organic acids were varied in this experiment. in addition, the concentration of each acid was varied and studied. for citric acid, acetic acid, and lactic acid, the studied concentration of those acid solutions was 0.1, 0.5, 1, and 2 m. meanwhile, the concentration of the oxalic acid solution was only varied at 0.1, 0.5, and 1 m due to the maximum solubility of oxalic acid in water. by way of comparison, sulphuric acid was also used in this leaching process. this experiment was conducted to observe the potential of organic acid as a solvent compared to inorganic acid, which dominates the metal ions leaching process. in this experiment, the sulphuric acid's leaching process was designed at an acid concentration of 0.1 m for 240 minutes. the sampling process for the metal ions analysis was carried out periodically at 30, 60, 120, 180, and 240 minutes. the sample was taken out from the extractor. the sample was separated between the solid and liquid phases using a centrifuge that operated at 6,000 rpm for 15 minutes. the formed supernatant (liquid phase) was taken to the amount of 10 ml and diluted to a solution volume of 20 ml. after that, the diluted sample was analyzed for the content of ni (ii) and al (iii) ions using a uv–vis spectrophotometer (mapada uv–6100 pc). the analysis process was carried out using complexing agents, namely dmg for ni (ii) ions and ecr for al (iii) ions (wanta et al., 2020b). 2.3 analysis of ni (ii) ions this analysis method was adapted from the article written by haar & westerveld (1948). ten milliliters of sample solution were mixed with 1 ml of 2 n sulphuric acid solution, 2 ml of 20% sodium tartrate solution, 8 ml of 5% potassium persulphate solution, and 0.5 ml of 1% dmg solution. to this mixture was added 5 n of sodium hydroxide solution until the total volume of the mixture amounted to 50 ml. this sample was subsequently moved to a cuvette and was analyzed using a uv–vis spectrophotometer at a wavelength of 560 nm. the blank solution was produced by mixing 10 ml of demineralized water, a complexing agent, and 5 n sodium hydroxide until the total volume amounted to 50 ml. 2.4 analysis of al (iii) ions this analysis method followed the procedure from the general chemistry laboratory, eastern michigan university (2018). ten milliliters of sample solution were mixed with 2 ml of 0.02 n sulphuric acid solution, 20 ml of buffer solution, 2 ml of the ascorbic acid solution, and 10 ml of ecr solution. to this mixture was added demineralized water until the total volume amounted to 100 ml. this sample was subsequently moved to a cuvette and was analyzed using a uv–vis spectrophotometer at a wavelength of 535 nm. the blank solution was produced by mixing 10 ml of demineralized water and a complexing agent until the total volume amounted to 100 ml. 3. results and discussion 3.1 effect of leaching time theoretically, the leaching time critically affects recovering metal ions in the spent catalyst. in this research study, the leaching time was varied from 0 to 240 minutes. the organic acid concentration was kept constant at 1 m. the experimental results on leaching time are presented in fig. 2. this figure shows that the increase in ni (ii) ion recovery was accompanied by an increase in leaching time. the results show that from 30 to 240 minutes, the leaching process increased the recovery of ni (ii) ions between 2.41–3.91 times for the four types of acids. the profile of the experimental results that occur in the recovery of ni (ii) ions also occurs for the recovery of al (iii) ions. this can be observed in fig. 3. the longer the leaching time, the bigger the opportunity that each molecule in the system remains in contact, especially the reactant molecules. as a result, the chemical reactions during the leaching process will react and produce more product molecules. fig. 2 effect of leaching time on the ni (ii) ions recovery at an acid concentration of 1 m 0 50 100 150 200 250 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 c on ce nt ra tio n of n i(i i) io ns (p pm ) time (minutes) citric acid lactic acid oxalic acid acetic acid t.k.m.a. panggabean et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 459-466 |462 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 3 effect of leaching time on the al (iii) ions recovery at an acid concentration of 1 m time affects not only the step of chemical reactions but also molecular diffusion. the diffusion step experienced by each reactant and product molecule also takes time to move. the reactant molecules will diffuse from the bulk liquid to the surface of the liquid and the reaction site. on the other hand, the product molecules will move and diffuse from the reaction site to the liquid body. these two steps of diffusion will take place simultaneously so that in the pores/paths that tend to be narrow, all molecules will collide with each other. thus, this diffusion step will require a long time to produce an optimal leaching process. fig. 2 and 3 provide an overview of the effect of time on metal ion recovery. these two figures explain how the behavior occurs during the leaching process. in the recovery of al (iii) ions (fig. 3), there was a very significant increase in aluminium recovery in the first 30 minutes of the leaching process. after 30 minutes, the tendency to increase metal ion concentration occurred gradually. this phenomenon indicates that the leaching rate is swift at the beginning of the leaching time. this condition is related to the role of aluminium in catalyst production. aluminium, in the form of γ-al2o3 (γ-alumina), supports the catalyst (trueba & trasatti, 2005). it causes aluminium will occupy most of the area on the catalyst, especially on the surface of the catalyst powder. as a result, retrieving aluminium will be much easier and require faster leaching times, especially at the early stage of the leaching process. the opposite condition occurs in the uptake of ni (ii) ions. fig. 2 shows that the concentration of ni (ii) ions in the bulk solution increases gradually. it proves that the recovery of ni (ii) ions takes longer. as the active site, nickel is scattered in a deeper position, so this recovery process takes longer, which is especially necessary for the diffusion process, both reactant molecules and product molecules. in addition, the experimental results shown in fig. 2 and 3 show the potential to obtain more and more metal ions. in this condition, it can be observed that there is no sign of equilibrium in the two graphs. this means that the maximum time used in this experiment differs from the time that gives optimal results. one of the main reasons this phenomenon occurs is that the temperature used in this research experiment is room temperature. using this specific temperature will yield a slower process rate and result in a longer leaching time to obtain optimal leaching results. in this study, the main focus of learning is on room temperature. in the future, studies related to leaching temperature deserve to be considered and studied in greater depth so that its effect on the length of time for the leaching process can also be observed. 3.2 effect of the type of organic acid in the leaching process, the choice of solvent is necessary. one type of solvent that can be used is an acid solution. acid solutions are solvents that have been tested for leaching metal ions. it is due to hydrogen ions (h+) which can be produced from the dissociation process when the acid is dissolved in water. this hydrogen ion will displace the metal ion from its anion, such as the oxide ion, so the metal ion can dissolve and form molecular compounds according to the acid's anion. the chemical reaction that occurs during the leaching process using organic acid is as follows (behera & mulaba-bafubiandi, 2015; golmohammadzadeh et al., 2018; simate et al., 2010). organic acid dissociation step citric acid : c6h8o7(aq) ↔ (c6h5o7)3–(aq) + 3h+(aq) (1) lactic acid : c3h6o3(aq) ↔ (c3h5o3)3–(aq) + h+(aq) (2) oxalic acid : c2h2o4(aq) ↔ (c2o4)2–(aq) + 2h+(aq) (3) acetid acid : c2h4o2(aq) ↔ (c2h3o2)– (aq) + h+(aq) (4) proton attack step mxoy(s) + 2yh+(aq) → xm2y/x+(aq) + yh2o(l) (5) where m stands for the metal element. complexation or chelation step xm2y/x+(aq) + az–(aq) ↔ mza2y/x(aq) (6) where a is an anion from the dissociation step, for instance, citrate, lactate, oxalate, acetate ions. this research study focuses on using organic acids as a solvent for metal ions in the spent catalyst. four types of organic acids were studied for their effect on metal ion recovery: citric acid, lactic acid, oxalic acid, and acetic acid. the experimental results can be seen in fig. 4, where the results are obtained when the acid concentration is 1 m and the extraction process takes place for 240 minutes. the experimental result shown in fig. 4 provides information that the order of the types of organic acids from the best to the worst for leaching ni (ii) and al (iii) ions are citric acid – lactic acid – oxalic acid – acetic acid. citric acid is the most suitable solvent due to the properties of the hydrogen ions. equation (1) shows that hydrogen ions are produced in greater quantities than the other three organic acids. fig. 4 effect of leaching time on the metal ions recovery at an acid concentration of 1 m for 240 minutes 0 50 100 150 200 250 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 c on ce nt ra tio n of a l(i ii) io ns (p pm ) time (minutes) citric acid lactic acid oxalic acid acetic acid 344.64 321.68 305.92 182.56 953.13 873.75 807.96 620.85 citric acid lactic acid oxalic acid acetic acid 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 c o n ce n tr a tio n o f m e ta l i o n s (p p m ) type of acid ni(ii) ions al(iii) ions t.k.m.a. panggabean et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 459-466 |463 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore as a tricarboxylic acid, citric acid has the ability to donate three protons (h+) per molecule when it dissociates in water. this means that citric acid also has three pka values and can be observed in the following equation (golmohammadzadeh et al., 2018). h3c6h5o7(aq) = h2c6h5o7–(aq) + h+(aq) (pka1 = 2.79) (7) h2c6h5o7– (aq) = hc6h5o72–(aq) + h+(aq) (pka2 = 4.30) (8) hc6h5o72– (aq) = c6h5o73–(aq) + h+(aq) (pka3 = 5.65) (9) the more hydrogen ions, the greater the probability of a proton attack. thus, this organic acid can perform the metal leaching process better than other acids. instead of this, the pka value of each acid can explain the phenomenon in the other three organic acids. the pka values for lactic acid, oxalic acid, and acetic acid were 3.86, 4.19, and 4.76, respectively (golmohammadzadeh et al., 2018). the lower the pka, the stronger the acidity. this indicates that the ability to donate protons (h+ ions) in the system is also improving. this phenomenon explains why lactic acid can leach more ni (ii) and al (iii) ions compared to oxalic acid and acetic acid. however, the use of oxalic acid leads to another phenomenon where it also forms nickel oxalate precipitate. this phenomenon follows the following chemical reaction equation (allen, 1953). 2niso4(aq) + 2h2c2o4(aq) ↔ [ni(c2o4)2]– ni2+(aq) + 2h2so4(aq) (10) [ni(c2o4)2]– ni2+(aq) → 2nic2o4.2h2o(s) (11) as evidence of the formation of those compounds, testing of the residual solids resulting from leaching with 1 m oxalic acid solution was carried out to determine the mineral phase that occurred. the results of the analysis are presented in fig. 5. the formation of nickel oxalate compounds during the leaching process is undesirable. nickel oxalate compounds have very low solubility in water, so the nickel oxalate precipitation process will also coincide with the leaching process. indeed, this phenomenon looks advantageous because it does not require precipitation or product crystallization at a later stage. however, this condition will be detrimental because the formed precipitate compound is mixed directly with the spent catalyst in the system. this will lead to new problems separating spent catalyst residues and nickel oxalate products. this separation process can be complicated or even classified as an impossible thing to accomplish. thus, oxalic acid as a solvent in the metal leaching process is not recommended for use as a solvent. fig. 5 xrd pattern on residue solid from leaching process using oxalic acid 1 m fig. 6 effect of acid concentration on the ni (ii) ions recovery for 240 minutes 3.3 effect of organic acid concentration in studying the effect of organic acid concentrations, the utilization of citric acid, lactic acid, and acetic acid was carried out at concentrations of 0.1, 0.5, 1, and 2 m. meanwhile, oxalic acid could not be carried out at concentrations of 2 m because of the solubility of that particular compound in water. the experimental results are presented in fig. 6. these results showed similar results for the four types of organic acids. a higher concentration of acid will produce a more significant number of hydrogen ions. the hydrogen ions will attack the metal compound, for example, nickel and aluminium oxide, on the catalyst to produce water-soluble ni (ii) ions. thus, a high acid concentration will increase the nickel's recovery in the solution. the phenomenon that occurs in ni (ii) ions is the same as in the leaching al (iii) ions. the experimental results for al (iii) ions can be observed in fig. 7. 3.4 organic acid vs. sulphuric acid employed for the leaching process in this section, it between organic acid and sulphuric acid will be compared as a solvent for this leaching process. in hydrometallurgy, sulphuric acid is the most widely used type of solvent. the results of the comparison between the five types of acids are presented in fig. 8, where the concentration used was 0.1 m. sulphuric acid as a solvent gave much better leaching results than all the organic acids used in previous studies. as previously explained, the leaching process is strongly influenced by the strength of the acid, as seen from the number of hydrogen ions in the system. sulphuric acid in water dissociates entirely according to the following chemical reaction equation (vynnycky & assunção, 2020). h2so4(aq) → 2h+(aq) + so42–(aq) (12) compared with the four organic acids (equation 1–4), the hydrogen ion in sulphuric acid will ideally form according to stoichiometry. this is because the reaction is irreversible. on the other hand, in organic acids, the dissociation reaction is reversible, indicating that there is a balance factor in the formation of hydrogen ions. this results in citric acid, although it forms three hydrogen ions; in terms of the strength of sulphuric acid, which produces two hydrogen ions, it still has a higher level of acidity. as a result, in the leaching process with the same acid concentration, the performance of the sulphuric acid solvent is still superior. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 300 325 350 375 n i(i i) io ns c on ce nt ra tio n (p pm ) acid concentration (m) citric acid lactic acid oxalic acid acetic acid t.k.m.a. panggabean et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 459-466 |464 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 7 effect of acid concentration on the al (iii) ions recovery for 240 minutes fig. 8 the performance of organic and sulphuric acid in the leaching process of metal ions at an acid concentration of 0.1 m for 240 minutes in addition, the use of organic acids (weak acids) raises other phenomena that will affect the mechanism of the metal leaching process. equation (6) shows how complex compounds (chelates/ligands) are formed when metal ions bind to anions from organic acids. meanwhile, this phenomenon does not occur using inorganic acids (strong acids) during the leaching process. the complex compound has a larger molecular size than the product molecules formed using inorganic acids (wanta et al., 2022). this condition will affect the mechanism and the leaching process's total rate. large molecules will hinder the diffusion process of reactant and product molecules inside the solid. thus, the rate of the leaching process with organic acids will be controlled by the diffusion step of the product molecules in the solid. this experiment needs to be designed by applying various kinetic models and will be the focus of further research in our future studies. even though sulphuric acid gives better results, using organic acids does not mean they do not have the potential and opportunities for further development. moreover, this organic acid is an environmentally friendly solvent compared to sulphuric acid. citric acid is a type of organic acid whose leaching behavior is similar to sulphuric acid. astuti et al. (2016) conducted a comparative study between sulphuric acid and organic acids in the leaching process of nickel from indonesian saprolite ore. in their study, the citric acid solvent was able to match the performance of sulphuric acid in their leaching process. this condition is based on the hope that organic acids, especially citric acid, deserve to be considered a suitable solvent for leaching metal ions. indeed, several efforts need to be made to improve the performance of the leaching process using organic acids. the improvement effort in question can be in the form of increasing the operating temperature, reducing particle size, extending the operating time, and many other efforts. 4. conclusion spent catalyst has excellent potential to be explored and utilized for its nickel resources as part of the raw material for manufacturing rechargeable battery cathodes. the metal from the catalyst can be leached through an extraction process using organic acid solvents. this experiment proves that citric acid, lactic acid, oxalic acid, and acetic acid can be applied as solvents. these four acids are believed to be green solvents compared to sulphuric acid, which is more widely used as a solvent. based on the experimental results, citric acid is the solvent that gives the best leaching results compared to the other three organic acids. when the leaching process took place for 4 hours, the 2 m citric acid solution succeeded in leaching ni (ii) and al (iii) ions of 357.8 and 1,975.4 ppm, respectively. the recovery of metal ions with citric acid results are still lower than the ones with sulphuric acid as a solvent. however, citric acid can still be developed further to have the same or better performance than sulphuric acid. various alternatives for manipulating the operating parameters of the leaching process, such as temperature, particle size, the addition of additives, and others, can be conducted to increase the process rate. thus, the extraction of metal ions from the spent catalyst is suitable for further study to obtain maximum results and meet the demand for metal ions as a raw material for producing rechargeable batteries. the results obtained from this research study are expected to form a solution in supplying the need for nickel as a raw material for producing rechargeable batteries. acknowledgments the authors gratefully acknowledge the institute for research and community service, parahyangan catholic university (lppm unpar) for their financial support. the authors would like to thank brin’s science services and mr. gelar panji gemilar from pt. petrokimia gresik because of their support, especially the analysis and raw materials. author contributions: t.k.m.a.p.: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing—original draft; r.f.s.: supervision, validation, writing—review and editing; w.a.: formal analysis, writing—review and editing; h.t.b.m.p.: writing—review and editing, resources; a.p.k.: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, writing—review and editing, project administration; k.c.w.: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, validation, writing—original draft, project administration. funding: this research was funded by institute for research and community service, parahyangan catholic university. conflicts of interest: the authors declare no conflict of interest. references allen, j. a. 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(2018). ni-based nanostructures as high-performance cathodes for rechargeable ni−zn battery. chemnanomat, 4(6), 525–536; https://doi.org/10.1002/cnma.201800078 © 2023. the author(s). this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution-sharealike 4.0 (cc by-sa) international license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2012.08.003 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hydromet.2010.03.012 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hydromet.2019.105122 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2021.34484 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejic.200500348 https://doi.org/10.5277/ppmp170137 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10665-020-10061-8 https://doi.org/10.3390/min10070613 https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899x/742/1/012025 https://doi.org/10.14203/metalurgi.v36i2.591 https://doi.org/10.14716/ijtech.v13i2.4641 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b03900 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-018-0191-3 https://doi.org/10.1002/cnma.201800078 utilization of the spent catalyst as a raw material for rechargeable battery production: the effect of leaching time, type, and concentration of organic acids tabita kristina mora ayu panggabeana, ratna frida susantia, widi astutib, himawan tri bayu murti petrusc, anastasia prima kristijartia, kevin cleary wantaa,0f 1. introduction international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023, 12 (2), 366-374 | 366 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49910 issn: 2252-4940/© 2022.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id design of optical collimator system for vehicle speed gun using non-imaging optics le minh nhuta , thanh-tuan phama* , tien-dung tranb , vu dinh huana, seoyong shinc† a faculty of vehicle and energy engineering, ho chi minh city university of technology and education – hcmute, ho chi minh city, vietnam b energy management department, chez bong co. ltd, ho chi minh city, vietnam c department of information and communication engineering, myongji university, yongin, korea abstract. vehicle speed guns are usually used in normal sunlight conditions (daytime). if we want to use vehicle speed guns in low light conditions (nighttime), the illuminator is needed to provide sufficient light for the vehicle speed gun to take photos. the illuminator must fulfill two requirements: (i) using the infrared wavelength to ensure that the driver is not startled by dazzling eyes by the illuminator of the proposed speed gun system and (ii) high energy efficiency to make the illuminator compact leading to the use a small battery system to improve the portable of the proposed vehicle speed gun. in this study, an illuminator using a collimator system designed by using non-imaging optics is introduced. leds with infrared wavelength are chosen from the library of lighttoolstm, the structure of collimated is designed to transfer the illumination from the leds array to a square area of 3x3 m2 to cover the vehicle to detect the vehicle number plate. the design process is built based on the conservation of optical path length in the matlab program. after that, the designed collimator is simulated in lighttoolstm software. the promising results of the simulation in lighttoolstm show that the collimator can efficiently transfer light from the led array to the target area with a uniformity of about 70 % and optical efficiency of about 80 %. keywords: illumination, collimator, vehicles speed gun, lighttools, non-imaging optics, matlab programming, non-imaging optics. @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 15th oct 2022; revised: 7th january 2023; accepted: 2nd feb 2023; available online: 10th feb 2023 1. introduction a vehicle speed gun operates based on the principle of the doppler effect; thus, it can work in any light condition (hamelmann et al 2019). however, a vehicle speed gun must be used with a camera to take photos serving as evidence. therefore, a vehicle speed gun is usually used in the daytime. if it is used at night, a flashlight is required for the camera. the flashlight for the speed gun must use infrared illumination with wavelengths longer than 750 nm to guarantee the safe movement of drivers. in addition, a flashlight should have high power to enable the camera to take photos from a long distance, around 70 m to 100 m. this requirement leads to the need of using a large battery for the flashlight. a battery system that is not compact will hinder the applicability of the speed gun system as a portable mobility device. on the other hand, a small battery with high mobility does not have enough energy for a high-power illumination instrument of a speed gun. there is an effective solution for this problem which is to use led (light-emitting diode) because of its great light intensity with small energy consumption. as a result, a compact battery system working for a long time is available, thus improving the mobility and performance of vehicle speed guns. leds typically emit light with a beam view angle of about 120-degree angle if * corresponding author email: tuanpt@hcmute.edu.vn (t.t. pham) † corresponding author email: sshin@mju.ac.kr (s. shin) no optical lens or reflector is used (liu et al 2019). therefore, a led array for illumination is just effective only if it is designed and used with accordant optical lenses with special application. in this case, if optical lenses are not suitable for leds array, light from leds will not spread and distribute into the target area, meaning a waste of energy. to design a collimator for a led array, non-imaging optics (winston et al 2005, chaves et al 2008) is a suitable method compared to imaging optics thanks to its simplicity and flexibility. non-imaging optics are completely suitable for applications such as illumination (koshel et al 2012) and aiming for transferring radiation energy (0’gallagher et al 2008) to the target area. especially, non-imaging is usually used for designs that need a high tolerance to ignore the effects of error in the assembly and production processes of optical elements (winston et al 2018). non-imaging optics was first invented by winston et al (2005) and then developed by minano et al (2015), and benitez (2004) for many applications in illumination and solar energy (dross et al 2004, gutierrez et al 1996, chong et al 2009). in non-imaging optics, there are two main methods for optical design such as flow line, and simultaneously multiple surfaces (sms) (chaves et al 2008, benitez et al 2004). the flow line is typically used to design compound parabolic concentrators (cpcs) while the sms method, which is modern research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49910 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49910 mailto:tuanpt@hcmute.edu.vn mailto:sshin@mju.ac.kr https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0603-8689 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2682-1427 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3168-6941 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3746-6835 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.49910&domain=pdf l.m. nhut et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 366-374 |367 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore and flexible, has many applications in designing optical lenses in 2d and 3d such as concentrators, distributors, collimators for concentrator photovoltaic systems, daylighting, and illumination systems (buljan et al 2014, gul et al 2016, martin et al 2002, tsangrassoulis et al 2008). in the sms method, a lens is built consisting of two surfaces, which are determined by positioning all points over these surfaces. each point is determined by using the conservation of optical path length. non-imaging optics is used widely in recent years in the design of optical concentrators such as studies by pham et al. (2018), pham et al (2019), mohedano et al. (mohedano 2016), and ryu et al. (2006), etc. in addition, contributors and distributors in daylighting systems are designed by using non-imaging optics in published papers by pham et al. (2017), irfan et al. (2014, irfan et al. (2012), etc. these aspects show that non-imaging optics is a suitable method to design an optical system for a vehicle speed gun. furthermore, focusing on the improvement of the performance of the vehicle speed gun, there are some studies on the design of light sources for replacing ultrasound signals such as a study from erik kreifeldt et al. (1996), a study from kumar et al. (2019, kumar et al (2014), and a study from muzal et al. (2016). in those studies, the authors have tried to use laser sources to detect the velocity of the vehicle. although the speed of light is higher than sound in the doppler effect, however, the accuracy is still limited and that makes the controller more complicated. on the other hand, some studies focus on the design of a control system to improve the performance of vehicle speed guns by handling the reflected signal. there are some studies in this field such as studies from adnan et al. (2013), mandava et al. (2018), and nguyen et al. (2014). all these mentioned analyses illustrate that many methods can be used to improve the performance of the vehicle speed gun depending on the specific condition of the application. however, almost vehicle speed gun systems in commercial can work well in daytime conditions. therefore, in this work, we limit the project to applying the vehicle speed gun in the nighttime condition to detect the speed of cars without modifying much of the main system. the extended application for the nighttime condition is used by adding the illuminator which can use efficient energy in a compact battery. in the field of estimating the speed of cars in nighttime condition, there is few studies come from setiyono et al. (2021), hassan et al. (2016), dharhir et al. (2019), and abdelwahed et al. (2022), etc. although there are few studies on the estimation of speed guns at nighttime, however, almost focus on data analysis and image processing to detect the speed of the vehicle. there is no literature for design a collimator for the illuminator of the vehicle speed gun. thus, the design of a collimator of illuminator with high energy efficiency is promising to apply the normal vehicle speed gun in nighttime conditions without increasing cost much in real conditions. in this paper, the study focuses on the design of an optical collimator system for a led array with infrared wavelength (from 750 nm to 850 nm) applied to a vehicle speed gun system. the collimator is designed using non-imaging optics based on the conservation of optical wavelength to guide the light emitting from the led array to a target 3x3 m2 with a distance of about 100 m. the structure of each collimator is divided into two parts for the construction of each: one part uses total internal reflection while the other part uses the refraction phenomenon to design a cartesian oval surface to collimate the light from led. each collimator is simulated in matlab, then the data is imported to lighttoolstm to do simulation and raytracing to evaluate the performance of the collimator. 2. design of the collimator for vehicle speed gun 2.1 design of collimator using refraction for each lens to design a collimator for led, the dimension of led is needed. led is chosen from the library of lighttoolstm with specifications as shown in fig. 1. from the dimension of each led, a led array consisting of 8x8 leds is proposed with dimensions of 180x180 mm with 64 high-power infrared leds. the collimator is an array consisting of 64 single lenses in which each lens acts the role of a collimator for each led. all lenses are combined by positioning on the transparent substrate. the lens is constructed by two surfaces: the entry surface is flat while the exit surface is a cartesian oval surface. the light emitting from led is refracted at the entry surface, then the refracted light will be refracted again at the exit surface to be a parallel ray outside of the lens to reach the target area with a distance of about 100 m. in actual conditions, led is not a point light source. however, for the sake of design simplicity, led is assumed as a point light source. the position of the point light source is determined as the intersection of two edge rays of the light emitted from led with a 1200 angle as shown in fig. 2. based on the position of the focal point, the shape of the collimator is designed which is shown in fig. 3. in this design, the conservation of optical path length is the most important. the edge rays emitting from unreal focal point f with angle 1200 are determined. in addition, the entry flat surface of the collimated lens is placed in front of the led. from this information, the position of the edge ray going into the lens is determined. the ray entering the lens will be refracted at the entry surface following snell’s theorem: sin 𝛼𝛼 = 𝑛𝑛 × sin 𝛽𝛽 (1) where α and β are incident and refracted angles compared to the normal of the entry surface while n is the refractive index of poly methyl methacrylate (pmma) for the wavelength of 750 nm. fig. 1 the shape and dimension of led that is chosen from the library of lighttoolstm l.m. nhut et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 366-374 |368 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 2 the position of the unreal focal point as a point source fig. 3 the point light source from focal point f illuminates the lens in the flat entry surface and the bundle ray exiting the lens is an array of parallel rays by using snell’s theorem, the direction of refracted ray can be determined. depending on the thickness of the lens’s base, the position of point b1 is calculated. the refracted lights are guided by the cartesian oval surface to exit the lens as parallel rays. the cartesian oval surface is evaluated by using the conservation of optical path length leading to every point of exit surface is determined as shown in fig. 3. a1+n×b1+c1=a2+n×b2+c2=a3+n×b3=a4+n×b4+c4=⋯=opl (2) where a1, a2, a3, a4, b1, b2, b3, b4, c1, c2, c4 are partial optical path lengths of the rays emitting from led; opl is the sum of optical path lengths of each ray. all of them are length with the unit in mm. in this design, a1, a2, a3, and a4 are the positions of the light entering the lens in the entry surface where snell’s law is used to determine the directions of refracted rays. b1, b2, b3, and b4 are points to evaluate the cartesian oval surface. c1, c2, b3, and c4 are points that are in the same wavefront. the conservation is always right for one wavefront. in conclusion, the position of focal point f for the point source is firstly assumed to evaluate the pan of light coming to the entry surface. snell’s law is secondarily used to determine the directions of any refracted light. the thickness substrate’s lens and directions are used to estimate the two extreme points of the cartesian oval surface. finally, the conservation of optical path length and numerical method is used to determine representing points of the cartesian oval surface. combining every point calculated to estimate the cartesian oval surface (freeform exit surface). as a result, the collimator is designed completely consisting of a flat entry surface and the freeform exit surface to collimate the light emitting from led to go to the target area. after that, the data can be used to revolve around the center axis to create a 3d collimator in lighttools as shown in fig. 4. fig. 4 the single led and collimator and array of leds and collimators to apply this design of led and collimator lenses to vehicle speed guns, the lenses are combined by using only one substrate for all lenses. each lens will receive a light emitting from led to transfer the light to exit the lens as a bundle of parallel rays. however, a drawback of this design is that it is highly sensitive to alignment. if the array of collimators is not assembled accurately, all lenses will have errors in making parallel rays leading to the bundle of rays, thus cannot transfer correctly to the target. therefore, this design requires a highaccuracy assembly process, which is hard to achieve in practical conditions. to overcome this drawback, another design of collimator is proposed in which the collimator lens is designed by using simultaneously total internal reflection and refraction. the design of this collimator lens is introduced in detail in the next part. 2.2 design of collimator using total internal reflection and refraction in each lens in general, the collimator lens can be divided into two parts: the first part is designed using refraction while the second part is designed using the total internal reflection. dimensions of the first part and second part can be chosen depending on the size of the led’s lens. the collimator lens has a structure with a hole in the center to hold the led, the exit surface is flat as shown in fig. 5. in this design, the led collimator lens comprises a refractive center section (front center entry), a refractive center section (side center entry), and a side reflective surface where the reflection is due to total internal reflection (tir). the sections of the front center entry and side center entry capture a different angular portion of the light source as shown in fig. 6. fig. 5 led with collimator lens with a hole in the center to hold led’s lens l.m. nhut et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 366-374 |369 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 6 the collimator lens with two portions for led using tir and refraction to design there are some requirements for this design which are (i) the hole center diameter is bigger than that of the led’s lens; (ii) the inner height of the hole center is higher than that of the led’s lens; (iii) diameter of exit surface is equal to the outer circle of led’s base. fig. 5 shows the components of the led and collimator lens. the process for the design of the led collimator is described in several steps as follows. step 1. the designer chooses the total height of the collimator lens and the angular portion of light spread for the front center entry and side center entry. step 2. using the diameter of the center hole, the surface where a portion of the bundle of rays comes into the lens is estimated. the side center entry surface can be freeform or cylindrical. however, to make the design simple, the cylindrical surface is chosen to receive a portion of illumination emitting from led. step 3. the bundle of rays coming to the side center entry is refracted at the interface to go to the side reflective surface following snell’s law. the shape of the side reflective surface is estimated so that the rays are reflected as a total internal reflection. to calculate the side reflective surface, the position of unreal focal point f_side is chosen and the conservation of optical path length is used in eq. 3. 𝑛𝑛 × 𝑎𝑎1 + 𝑛𝑛 × 𝑏𝑏1 = 𝑛𝑛 × 𝑎𝑎2 + 𝑛𝑛 × 𝑏𝑏2 = 𝑛𝑛 × 𝑎𝑎3 + 𝑛𝑛 × 𝑏𝑏3 = 𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂 (3) where n is the refractive index of the lens medium for the light with a wavelength of 750 nm. the side reflective surface adapts eq. 3 should be a portion of the parabolic surface with the focal point being unreal focal point f_side in fig. 6. in this step, the incident angle 𝛾𝛾 of a ray in fig. 6 should be greater than the critical angle 𝛾𝛾critical which is used to calculate the total internal reflection in eq. 4. n × sin γcritical = 𝑛𝑛𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 × sin 900 (4) where nair is the refractive index of air. if the incident angle 𝛾𝛾 is smaller the 𝛾𝛾critical incident light will refract at the side reflective surface to go outside of the lens. when the incident angle 𝛾𝛾 increases, the refractive angle will increase immediately until reach a value 900 at which the total internal reflection happens leading to the refracted beam will be changed to the reflected beam inside of the lens. therefore, if the value of n of the lens is 1.486 and the value of nair is 1, the critical angle 𝛾𝛾critical should be about 42.40. so that if that requirement for incident angle 𝛾𝛾 is not adapted, the position of unreal focal point f_side should be chosen again until the requirement adapting. step 4. based on the inner height and diameter of the center hole, the positions of ac1 and ac3 are estimated completely. the conservation of optical path length is calculated for every ray coming to the front center entry in eq. 5. 𝑎𝑎1 + 𝑛𝑛 × 𝑏𝑏1 = 𝑎𝑎2 + 𝑛𝑛 × 𝑏𝑏2 = 𝑎𝑎3 + 𝑛𝑛 × 𝑏𝑏3 = 𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂 (5) any ray coming to the front center entry adapts the conservation of optical path length leading to the freeform of the front center entry surface is estimated. step 5. when the side center entry and the front center entry are estimated already, the data of the crossectional view revolves around the center axis along the led collimator to get a collimator lens as fig. 5. after that, an array of leds and collimators can be created to be a flashlight for a vehicle speed gun as shown in fig. 7. in this structure of collimator lens, the requirement for the high accuracy assembly process is reduced significantly because every led and collimator is independent of others. all these steps to design the collimator lens are carried out in the matlab program. the data of the cross-sectional view of the collimator is calculated using a numerical method. after that, the discrete data from matlab is inserted into lighttoolstm software to draw the collimator in 3d (3 dimensions). the flowchart of the design procedure is shown in fig. 8. in general, the design is firstly carried out in matlab based on some initial parameters relating to the characteristics of led. in programming, the conditions to stop the process are always important. in this process, stopping conditions are total internal reflection and size of the collimator lens. tir has to happen at the side reflective surface while the size of the collimator lens should be equal to the size of the outer circle of the led’s base. if the designed lens is not meet these requirements, the unreal focal point f_side should be chosen again to obtain all requirements. the data collected in matlab is just a 2d design. after that, the 2d data from matlab is inserted into lighttools to draw the object in 3d by revolving the shape of the lens in 2d. the 3d lens draw in lighttoolstm is used to simulate for estimation of the performance of the proposed system. fig. 7 the array of leds and collimator lenses applied to the vehicle speed gun l.m. nhut et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 366-374 |370 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 8 the flow chart to design the array of leds and collimators applied to a vehicle speed gun in addition, the uniformity of light distribution over the target is also an important parameter to estimate the performance of the proposed system which is estimated in lighttoolstm and is calculated in eq. 6. 𝑈𝑈 = 100 − 𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑎𝑚𝑚−𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑎𝑚𝑚 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 × 100% (6) where average, min, and max are the mean value, lowest value, and highest value of the intensity of light over the target area, respectively. 3. results and discussion this study aims to apply the designed collimator lens to a flashlight system for a vehicle speed gun performing in the night condition with a compact and effective battery. the main requirement of the illuminator of the proposed vehicle speed gun is the wavelength belonging to the range of the invisible spectrum for safe driving. it depends on the properties of the charge coupled device (ccd) camera used for the vehicle speed gun system. generally, the illuminator should have a wavelength in a range from 750 nm to 950 nm. for convenience, in this study, the characteristics of led with a wavelength of 750 nm are chosen from the lighttoolstm library as shown in fig. 1. pmma material is a good selection for collimator lenses because of its high transmission coefficient of about 93 % (ali 2015) as shown in fig. 9. in this study, the design of the collimator lens is applied to the vehicle speed gun system so that the collimator lens will have a small spread angular distribution of exiting light to distribute the light to the target area. that small spread angle will be obtained by modifying the side reflective surface or modifying the flat exit surface be a curve surface. the modification of the side reflective surface is chosen to make the design process simple. the spread angle is calculated depending on the distance from the light source to the target area. there are two ways to illuminate the vehicle a long distance of around 100 m or a shorter distance of about 30 m. fig. 9 the refractive index and transmission of pmma material following the wavelength for the designed collimator lens if the light source is placed at the same place as speed gun systems, the distance from the light source is long so that the spreading angle should be small even equal to zero. for long distances, a random defect of emission light from led is enough for the spread of light at the target area and it is difficult to reach the requirement of lux on the target area in outside illumination for a ccd (charge coupled device) camera taking photos (vu 2017). therefore, the flashlight source can be remotely controlled by using wireless communication to put the light source near the target area. wireless communication is a mature technology and it can be applied easily to the vehicle speed gun system. the distance from the light source to the target area (car’s position) is chosen at about 30 m as shown in fig. 10. table 1 illustrates the parameters of simulation and ray-tracing of the optical system in lighttoolstm software to estimate the performance of the designed collimator lenses in the flashlight source for the vehicle speed gun system. the discrete data from matlab is inserted into lighttoolstm to build the flashlight source. fig. 11 a) shows the ray-tracing of a single led and single collimator. the results show that the rays emitting from led are divided into two sections. the outer section entering the collimator is refracted to go to the side surface where the rays are total internal reflected to exit at the collimator lens at a flat exit surface. the center section of bundle rays enters the collimator at the freeform surface where the directions of rays are changed to go to the exit surface as parallel rays. however, led is not a point source in reality and simulation leading to the lightly spread of the bundle of rays exiting the collimator. the ray-tracing is carried out for an array of leds and collimators which is illustrated in fig. 11 b). fig. 10 the way to set up the flashlight source for a vehicle speed gun using wireless communication to reduce the distance from the light source to the target vehicle l.m. nhut et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 366-374 |371 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore table 1 parameters for simulation and ray-tracing in lighttoolstm items value wavelength 750 nm the outer circle of the led’s base 21.5 mm distance from the light source to the target area 30 m spreading angle < 2.90 inner center heigh 6.5 mm diamter of inner center hole 6.0 mm total height of collimator lens 15 mm diameter of the flat exit surface 21.5 mm lens material pmma refractive index of pmma 1.486 number of rays for simulation and ray-tracing 3.000.000 rays power of single led 1 w number of lm per wat 500 lm number of lenses and leds 8 x 8 = 64 elements the dimension of the flashlight source consists of 64 elements 180 x 180 mm2 target area the average luminance on target are 3 x 3 m2 150 lx fig. 11 the ray-tracing of a) a single led and collimator and b) an array of leds and collimators the simulation of the flashlight source of the vehicle speed gun is conducted in lighttoolstm with wavelength 750 nm and 3.000.000 rays. the results of the simulation process show that the distribution of light over the target area is quite uniform as illustrated in fig. 12. the uniformity u can be changed as a function of some parameters such as the distance of the light source and target area, the wavelength of the led, and the interview beam angle of the led. when the characteristics of led in real conditions are different from the design parameters or the assembly of components is not perfect, all those aspects affect to uniformity and optical efficiency of the designed flashlight source for the vehicle speed gun. therefore, the effect of those aspects was analyzed in lighttoolstm to evaluate the ability to perform in real conditions. fig. 12 ray-tracing of the flashlight source in lighttoolstm and illumination distribution over the target area fig. 13 the optical efficiency and uniformity are functions of a) the beam view angle of led and b) the wavelength emission of led fig. 13 a) shows that the uniformity and optical efficiency of the designed collimator are independent of the change of beam view angle of led from 1050 to 1350. this trend relates to the structure of each collimator lens. the structure of the collimator lens is divided into two parts the outer angle and the inner angle. in which the inner refraction part has a hole center that can cover all rays emitting from led with a beam view angle smaller than 1800. in this design, the rays with emission angles from leds smaller than 300 are guided by refraction at the front center entry to be a horizontal ray that will go forward to the target area. in addition, the rays with emission angle from led greater than 300 are refracted and total internal reflected (tir) to be parallel rays exiting the lens. although the simulation results show that the beam view angle of led does not affect much the uniformity and the optical efficiency of the collimator, l.m. nhut et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 366-374 |372 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore the size of the light source will affect significantly the performance of the collimator lenses. however, the size of the emission area source is kept constant in this design because the led characteristics are inserted from the library of lighttoolstm. this mention illustrates that the designed collimator lenses can be used with different leds with different beam view angles of emission beam of leds. fig. 13 b shows that the change in the wavelength of led will affect the optical efficiency and uniformity of the collimator system. when wavelength changes leading to the refractive index of the medium lens (pmma) will be changed, thus, the refractive angle of incident rays coming to the interface will also change. depending on the wavelengths which are shorter or longer the exiting bundle of rays will be diverged or converged leading to uniformity and the optical efficiency will be changed. the optical efficiency changes slightly as a function of wavelength and reaches the maximum value at wavelength 750 nm which is chosen to design the collimator lens. the optical efficiency still reaches the value of about 80 % when the wavelength is 810 nm (infrared wavelength) which is suitable for the application of a vehicle speed gun. the optical efficiency of the collimator lenses can be changed following the change of wavelength; however, the change is slight with the sensitivity which is calculated by the ratio of change in optical efficiency and the change of wavelength that has the value of about 10 %. this analysis illustrates that the designed collimator lenses can be used with quite freely infrared led sources. on the other hand, the uniformity tends to increase slightly because of the refractive index decreasing leading to the collimated beam diverging a little. the value of uniformity is always higher than 70 % in the range of analyzed infrared wavelength. this analysis illustrates that the designed collimator is suitable for different infrared leds. in another word, this designed collimator is not only suitable for pmma materials but also it can be made with different materials for lenses. all aspects mentioned above show that the designed collimator can be carried out in actual conditions with an acceptable range of tolerance. there are some studies about the determination of a car’s speed in a nighttime as mentioned above. however, the approach of using infrared wavelength as a flashlight to take photos which are used as evidences of the car’s speed over the limit velocity is a novel idea. the advantage of this approach is the structure of the conventional vehicle speed gun system does not need to be modified. a portable vehicle speed gun using the dopler effect can be used in the nighttime, however, the photos for evidence issue should be solved. therefore, using infrared led as a flashlight for the aim of taking photos in a vehicle speed gun is a suitable method with minimum extended cost. depending on the application, the unique design of the lens for the led chip is necessary to guide the illumination energy to the target area to meet the requirements of the particular application. therefore, to use effectively the infrared led with a compact battery, the design of a collimator for the infrared led in the lighttoolstm library is proposed in this study. the design of the collimator is performed and simulated in lighttoolstm to estimate the rationality and the performance when it is applied to a flashlight of a vehicle speed gun system. promising simulation results show the high potential to perform the proposed flash light assembled with a designed collimator to the vehicle speed gun to extend the ability of the traditional vehicle speed gun. the simulation results of the proposed collimator have been compared to other studies published before. the comparison illustrates the designed collimator is acceptable. in the design of collimators from haobo et al. (haobo 2015) and from vidal et al. (vidal 2014), the optical efficiency is about 80 % which is quite similar to that of the proposed collimator. however, both collimators have a distance from led to target area short of about 5 m which is not suitable for the application of flash light of a vehicle speed gun. moreover, the structure of these collimators is more complicated and bigger compared to the proposed system. these properties will negatively affect the portability of the vehicle speed gun. furthermore, the simulation results of the proposed collimator have been compared to that of studies from the research groups chen et al. (2014) and vu et al. (2017). in the research of chen et al., although the optical efficiency and uniformity are higher than that of the proposed collimator, the size and the divergent angle of the collimator lens are large which can make the flashlight bulky and have a negative effect on the utility of energy of the battery. in terms of the study from vu et al. the optical efficiency is quite similar to that of the proposed collimator. however, the divergence angle is quite large of about 7.50 which can not apply to the flashlight of a vehicle speed gun with a long distance from the light source to the target area. the designed collimator in vu et al. research is just suitable for illumination distribution with the collimator placed in front of the distributor lens. based on these analyses, the comparison between collimators that are designed for different applications is difficult. however, all those analyzed aspects show the necessity of designing a particular collimator for infrared led applied to a vehicle speed gun. consequently, the simulation results obtained from the proposed collimator illustrate the conformity to apply to a flashlight of a vehicle speed gun. the simulation results also show a high potential to make a prototype to investigate the system in real conditions. all simulation results used for comparison are shown in table 2. additionally, fig. 14 shows the shapes and structures of some collimators published already to have an overview of the comparison. table 2 the properties of the proposed system and other studies. properties\studies proposed study (chen et al 2014) (haobo et al 2015) (vidal et al 2014) (vu et al 2017) led type ≥ 750 nm cree xr-e cree xp-e2 525 nm ±15 nm white led distance of target 30 m not mentioned 5 m 5 m infront of distributor diameter of collimator 21.5 mm 32.36 mm 17.12 mm 60 mm 10 mm type of collimator refraction and tir refraction and tir refraction and tir refraction and reflection refraction optical efficiency ~ 80 % 89 % 79.2 % 80 % ~ 80 % uniformity ~ 71 % 78 % not mentioned not mentioned not mentioned for collimator divergence angle < 20 20 and 40 30 130 < 20 7.50 l.m. nhut et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 366-374 |373 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 14 the structure of some collimators compared to the proposed collimator 6. conclusion in this study, the design of the collimator in detail is introduced using non-imaging optics. the collimator system is a combination of many single collimators which is constructed in the matlab program with some initial parameters for the design process such as the wavelength of 750 nm, materials for the lens of pmma, etc. two different structures of single collimator lenses are proposed, and after that, the characteristics of both are analyzed to choose the better structure. the chosen single collimator lens is structured consisting of two parts: the outer part uses refraction and total internal reflection to guide the ray entering the collimator while the inner part uses refraction to guide the rays coming to the front center entry interface. the size of each part is chosen freely using the beam view angles of emission rays from led. in this design, the outer part and the inner part are separated at the angle of 300 beam view angle. a single lens is designed in the matlab program, and after that, the data from matlab is transferred to lighttoolstm to draw three dimensions of the collimator. the 3d object in lighttoolstm is added the optical properties to do the ray-tracing and simulation to evaluate the performance of the single collimator lens and the collimator system. the simulation results show that the designed collimator array can be carried out with different infrared leds. furthermore, the collimator lens can be made from different materials without changing much of the performance of the collimator which is applied to a vehicle speed gun system. all analyzed aspects in this study illustrate the high potential of the collimator system combined with the infrared led to apply a vehicle speed gun to increase the performance of the speed gun at nighttime performance. although the study stops at the simulation in lighttoolstm, good properties of the designed collimator system motivate a plan to create a prototype to evaluate the performance of the designed collimator system in actual conditions soon. based on simulation results in this study, a prototype of an illuminator to carry out a vehicle speed gun system in nighttime conditions is a promise. the simulation results are used to compare to other collimators that are designed by other research groups. acknowledgments this study is highly supported by the faculty of vehicles and energy engineering – ho chi minh university of technology and education (hcmute) and the non-imaging optics lab – myongji university korea. author contributions: thanh-tuan pham and seoyon shin conceived the presented idea. thanh-tuan pham and le minh nhut 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(2009, july). an algorithm for automatic vehicle speed detection using video camera. in 2009 4th international conference on computer science & education (pp. 193-196). ieee. https://doi.org/10.1109/iccse.2009.5228496 © 2023. the author(s). this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution-sharealike 4.0 (cc by-sa) international license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) https://doi.org/10.1109/tuffc.2019.2943626 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118462539 https://doi.org/10.1364/opn.7.10.000006 https://research.ijcaonline.org/volume99/number19/pxc3897635.pdf https://research.ijcaonline.org/volume99/number19/pxc3897635.pdf https://doi.org/10.1109/itsc.2019.8917420 https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.27.035728 https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2262839 https://doi.org/10.1109/vtcfall.2018.8690893 https://doi.org/10.1109/atc.2014.7043414 https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings7040092 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2018.06.004 https://doi.org/10.3390/en12071209 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2005.12.006 https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1752/1/012087 https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1752/1/012087 https://doi.org/10.3763/aber.2008.0202 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2013.12.031 https://doi.org/10.1109/oecc.2012.6276589 https://doi.org/10.1117/12.825287 https://doi.org/10.3390/en10122091 https://doi.org/10.1364/aop.10.000484 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-759751-5.x5000-3 https://doi.org/10.1109/iccse.2009.5228496 design of optical collimator system for vehicle speed gun using non-imaging optics le minh nhuta, thanh-tuan phama0f , tien-dung tranb, vu dinh huana, seoyong shinc1f 1. introduction international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023, 12(2), 300-312 | 300 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.50065 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id biodiesel production from a naturally grown green algae spirogyra using heterogeneous catalyst: an approach to rsm optimization technique teku kalyania* , lankapalli sathya vara prasada , aditya kolakotib adepartment of mechanical engineering, andhra university college of engineering, visakhapatnam, 530003, india bdepartment of mechanical engineering, raghu engineering college(a), visakhapatnam, 531162, india abstract. the present study focuses on oil extraction and biodiesel production from naturally grown green spirogyra algae. solvent oil extraction and oil expeller techniques were used to extract the spirogyra algae oil (salo), and the oil yields were compared to identify the most productive method. using chicken eggshell waste (cesw) heterogeneous catalyst (hc) was prepared for the production of spirogyra algae oil biodiesel (salobd). furthermore, box–behnken (bb) assisted response surface method (rsm), an optimisation technique, was used in this study to achieve maximum algae biodiesel yield. from the 29 experimental trails, 96.18 % salobd was achieved at molar ratio (10:1), heterogeneous catalyst (0.6 wt.%), temperature (48 oc), and time (180 minutes). the predicted values of r2 (97.51%) and adj. r2 (95.02 %) are found to be encouraging and fits well with the experimental values. the output results showed that hc was identified as the significant process constraint followed by the time. the fatty acid composition (fac) analysis by gas chromatography (gcms) reveals the presence of 29.3% unsaturated composition and 68.39 wt. % of the saturated composition. finally, the important fuel properties of salobd were identified in accordance with astm d6751. the results obtained using chicken eggshell waste (cesw) for the production of biodiesel were recommended as a diesel fuel replacement to resist energy and environmental calamities. keywords: dried algae powder, dried algae flakes, heterogeneous catalyst, response surface method, spirogyra. @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 17th july 2022; revised: 22nd dec 2022; accepted: 18th january 2023; available online: 25th january 2023 1. introduction globally, the utilisation of non-renewable fuels like petrodieselderived fossil fuels stood as one of the primary sources of fuel supply for transportation, agriculture and industries (höök & tang, 2013). during the earlier days of its discovery, fossil fuels were identified as the most popularly used fuels because of their high efficiency, accessibility and low cost. however, with the increasing demand and high consumption, the availability of petrodiesel-derived fuels is on the verge of extinction. also, the exhaust emissions from petro-diesel-fuelled engines contribute to the reduction of air quality and increase environmental air pollution around the globe. consequently, the search for renewable and clean-burning fuels is attracting a lot of interest. to overcome the challenges, research on various feedstock oils revealed that biodiesels derived from different naturally existing oils might replace the current petrodiesel-derived fuel. therefore, biodiesels from various edible and non-edible oils have become viable alternatives to traditional hydrocarbon fuels like petro-diesel. biodiesels are clean burning renewable fuels, popular for their biodegradable capacity, reliability, less toxic nature and improved engine performance. biodiesel oils are divided into three (3) generations listed as first (1st) generation, second (2nd) generation and third (3rd) generation. the 1st generation of * corresponding author email: kalyanithermal@gmail.com (t. kalyani) biodiesel oils is related to edible oils. for the production of biodiesel, these oils raised the debate about food vs fuel issues. this concern led to 2nd generation of biodiesels. these are linked with non-edible oils and are proven to be a better source of producing biodiesel oils compared to the first generation because these biodiesels are readily available and less expensive. however, crop cultivation, production and oil yield are considered significant tasks in the production of secondgeneration biodiesel oils. these drawbacks made researchers focus on third-generation fuels termed algae biofuels. the algae biodiesels are emerging worldwide since they are available naturally, easy to grow, have high oxygen profiles, capable of reducing emissions etc. algae species, known as a clean, renewable fuel, are identified as one of the fast-growing biomasses to convert fuel into biodiesel. around the globe, more than 60,000 algae species are growing, and nearly 35,000 algae species have been identified (mata et al., 2010). algae groups are classified into seven types listed as red, green, blue-green (cyanobacteria), brown, phytoplankton, seaweeds, and other algae species (nur et al 2015). green microalgae spirogyra division comes under chlorophyta with lengths ranging from 10 to 100 µm. irradiation of light and temperature are the two important factors considered in achieving maximum growth of spirogyra algae. research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.50065 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.50065 mailto:kalyanithermal@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3844-2483 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6411-3299 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7515-8318 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.50065&domain=pdf t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 | 301 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore table 1 presence of oil content in some of the microalgae species microalgae species oil content (dry wt. %) chlorella 27 -32 schizochytrium 51-77 dunaliella tertiolecta 35-42 spirogyra 22-35 natashia 44-47 monallanthus salina 22 nannochloris 20-24 nannochloropsis 30-68 neochloris oleoabundans 45-48 botryococcus braunii 26-75 tetraselmis sueica 14 33 isochrysis 733 source: (bhateria & dhaka, 2014); (chisti, 2007); (konga et al., 2017) the range of light intensity varies from 32 to 38 µmol m-2s-2, and temperatures from 12 to 29 oc are considered optimum. altogether, 400 spirogyra free-float algae were identified and commonly found in freshwater near pond surfaces and saline waters (ananthi et al., 2021). species that possess unicellular growth in rivers, open ponds, and freshwater resources are called microalgae. it is evident from research reports that microalgae species produce high oil yields ranging from 20 to 80%, as shown in table 1 (bhateria & dhaka, 2014). the oil yield of microalgae with 70% oil by wt.% in biomass generates 136900 l/ha, and with 30 % oil by wt.% in biomass is 58700 l/ha (chisti, 2007). biodiesel production and characterisation research from various edible and non-edible oils is an ongoing process. oils that are inexpensive and easily accessible have a minute impact on food vs fuel conflict and are recommended as the better source for biodiesel production. however, due to the inadequate atomisation problem in diesel engines, it is suggested to use low-viscosity biodiesels (less than 40 cst.) (kolakoti & appa rao, 2020). hence, the transesterification process is recognised as one of the best processes for reducing kinematic viscosity (hariyanto et al., 2021); this process also gains high efficiency while converting it into biodiesel. the molar ratio (mr), time, temperature, and catalyst concentration (cc) are four significant process parameters used during transesterification. among these, cc plays a beneficial role in achieving the maximum amount of biodiesel. based on the availability and reaction process, two (2) types of catalysts exist, homogenous and heterogeneous catalysts. homogeneous catalyst is most regularly used in the transesterification process as they are highly catalytic in nature, readily available and available at a low price (supriyadi et al., 2022). the most commonly used solutions are homogeneous catalysts: potassium hydroxide (koh) and sodium hydroxide (naoh). due to its corrosive nature, the purification process requires more water and remains expensive. furthermore, the solution mixed in water is tough to collect and reuse. research was being carried out to mitigate these issues using the heterogeneous catalyst (hc). the key benefits of using a heterogeneous catalyst to prepare biodiesel include its environmental friendliness, ease of accessibility, separability, excellent stability and ability to be reused for up to five trials (kolakoti & satish, 2020; hadiyanto et al 2016). kolakoti et al., (2022) prepared a green heterogeneous catalyst calcinated at 700oc for 3 hours using moringa oleifera leaves that are available naturally for biodiesel production using palm oil. the maximum biodiesel achieved was 92.82 % at optimum conditions. fan et al. (2019) carried out an investigation using waste banana peel as a heterogeneous catalyst for the production of biodiesel. the results showed the presence of strong alkalinity, recyclable nature, and catalytic performance observed in the unique alkaline catalyst derived from the waste banana peel. moreover, after the transesterification process, heterogeneous catalyst uses less water for purification, which is inexpensive. as a result, heterogeneous catalyst attracts a lot of interest and suggests this procedure as a practical and cost-effective transesterification method. with the improvement in the latest technologies, the oil and biodiesel yields were estimated using various tools like analysis of variance (anova) and artificial neural network (ann) (kolakoti et al., 2020), which show high accuracy in yield predictions (kolakoti et al., 2020). another researcher (kumar et al., 2020) performed an experimental investigation on algae – jatropha to produce biodiesel yield using the response surface method (rsm) and anova analysis. similarly, (chozhavendhan et al., 2020) identified significant changes by changing process parameters such as catalyst concentration, oil-to-alcohol ratio, reaction temperature and reaction time parameters and concluded that catalyst plays a beneficial role in processing biodiesel. kolakoti et al., (2021) used waste chicken egg shells as a heterogeneous catalyst to produce biodiesel from cooking oil. also, the biodiesel yield was compared using two optimisation techniques rsm and ann. the results concluded that 91% of biodiesel yield is achieved from the two techniques. the discussion shows that there is more potential for algal biofuel as a sustainable green fuel. in the current study, naturally grown green spirogyra algae are collected directly from two open ponds from january to may 2022. a four-step technique (collection – harvesting – oil extraction – transesterification) is used to produce the spirogyra algae biodiesel. this study mainly focuses on collecting algae from open ponds without any kind of cultivation process, nutrients and chemicals. furthermore, the spirogyra algae grow naturally using sunlight, carbon dioxide and rainwater (reddy & majumder, 2014). the collected algae were cleaned and processed in two forms to extract oil, and oil yields via two different techniques were compared. one is the solvent extraction method (i) using dried algae powder, and the second is the oil expeller method (ii) using dry algae flakes. furthermore, the obtained spirogyra algae oil (salo) is converted into spirogyra algae oil biodiesel (salobd) using a heterogeneous catalyst (hc) prepared from chicken eggshell waste (cesw). very limited studies in this combination (salo + cesw) are available to convert raw algae oil to biodiesel with chicken eggshell waste as a heterogeneous catalyst mooted this study. furthermore, an optimisation technique was used in this study to obtain maximum algae biodiesel yield. for this, box– behnken (bb) supported response surface method (rsm) was applied. a number of 29 experimental trials were conducted randomly by varying the significant process constraints such as heterogeneous catalyst, molar ratio, time and temperature. hence the main objective of the present study is to extract algae oil and compare oil yields using two oil extraction techniques and to produce biodiesel from a naturally grown green algae spirogyra using chicken egg shell waste as a heterogeneous catalyst. finally, using rsm optimisation technique, the experimental biodiesel yield prediction was attained by varying the molar ratio, heterogeneous catalyst, time and temperature, conducting 29 experimental runs. 2. methods and materials 2.1 materials chemicals such as methanol (ch3oh) with (99.8 %) purity, sulphuric acid (h2so4) with (99.99 %) purity and n-hexane with (99 %) purity of different grades were purchased from sigma aldrich (merck) visakhapatnam, india. the chicken eggshell wastes are collected from a local restaurant in visakhapatnam. t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 | 302 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 1 locations of spirogyra algae collection the condenser apparatus required for oil extraction and transesterification processes are soxhlet apparatus, reflux, steam distillation unit, round bottom flask, hot plate magnetic stirrer, thermometers, filter papers, conical flask, separatory flasks, distilled water and glassware of borosil make. the apparatus required for experimentation are utilised from the research fuel laboratory. 2.2 four-step process for preparation of spirogyra algae biodiesel 2.2.1. collection the naturally grown green spirogyra algae were collected from two open ponds for 120 days (every 15 days) at a recorded temperature ranging from 22 to 29 oc. as shown in figure 1, the algae species were identified in two different locations, the first location is near thathavarikittali reservoirs, garividi mandal, at 18°17'03.0"n latitude and 83°28'57.9"e longitude, and the second location are identified at 18°13′40.1′′n latitude and 83°28′58.1′′e longitude near meesalapeta, nellimarla, vizianagaram, andhra pradesh, india. 2.2.2 harvesting and processing dried algae powder and dried algae flakes the wet algae blooms collected from two locations weighed 158 kg and were cleaned with distilled water to remove unwanted plants, snails, mud etc., as shown in fig. 2. after processing, a net weight of 96 kg of wet algae is obtained and divided into two equal parts (48 kg each) to prepare into two forms: dried algae powder and dried algae flakes. the dried algae powder is processed as shown in figure 3. initially, spirogyra wet algae were separated layer by layer and dried for five (5) consecutive days at 8:1 sun hour during the temperature range from 22 to 29oc and later dried in a hot air oven for one hour by maintaining 90oc to remove excess moisture content. later, the dried algae layers were converted into dried algae powder (fig. 3) using a mechanical grinding machine available in the research lab. finally, the weight of the dried algae powder obtained was 8 kg. in a similar approach, the processing of dried algae flakes is shown in figure 4. firstly, the obtained wet algae were ground into a smooth paste. the smooth paste was transferred into a lab tray and exposed to sunlight for five (5) consecutive days. about 14 kg of dried algae flakes were obtained out of 48 kg of wet algae paste. furthermore, the spirogyra algae oil extraction was carried out using the solvent extraction method and oil expeller press method. finally, the algae oil was extracted using chemical and mechanical methods, and the oil yields were compared to identify the most productive method. fig. 2 algae cleaning process fig. 3 processing of dried algae powder fig. 4 processing of dried algae flakes 2.2.3 oil extraction in third-generation algae biodiesels, the oil extraction process plays a beneficial role in which the solid form of dried algae powder/flakes is transferred into a liquid (algae oil) form known as the extraction process (topare et al., 2011). the oil extraction process uses various chemical techniques like solvent extraction and supercritical (sc) co2 methods. similarly, physical and mechanical techniques like microwave heating, ball milling, ultrasonication and oil expeller methods etc (mubarak et al., 2015). according to the research that is currently accessible, oil expeller techniques, supercritical co2, and solvent extraction procedures are the most efficient ways to recover oil between 50 and 80 percent (konga et al., 2017). each oil extraction technique has its own benefits and drawbacks, as mentioned in t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 | 303 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore the literature that is currently available (bhargavi et al., 2018). in the present investigation, two techniques were proposed to extract algae oil and to compare the oil yield, viz., solvent extraction process (the chemical method i) and oil expeller press process (mechanical method ii). 2.2.3.1 solvent extraction process (method i) in the present study, spirogyra algae oil was extracted by a solvent extraction process using the soxhlet apparatus (konga et al., 2017). the solvent extraction process is the most popular method, renowned for its high extraction efficiency and ease of use. as shown in fig. 5a, the setup includes a heater control, round bottom flask, soxhlet apparatus, reflux condenser and glass beakers necessary for extraction purposes. in order to obtain the maximum benefit from the solvent oil extraction process, optimum conditions must be maintained throughout the process. the oil extraction process was initiated by mixing the dried algae powder and n-hexane in the proportions of 1:2. the prepared algae powder with a weight of 300 grams was filled in the soxhlet apparatus, and 600 ml of n-hexane solvent was transferred into the flask (kalyani et al., 2023) and the mixture is heated until the temperature reaches 65oc. upon heating, vapours flow up from the side tube through the reflux condenser unit to reach the soxhlet housing chamber, where vapours are condensed and interact with solid dried algae powder. as a result of the interaction, some of the desirable chemicals in algae dissolve in the hot solvent. after the reaction, the soxhlet apparatus was filled with the hot algae oil mixture. furthermore, the solvent and the algae oil mixture were transferred into the round bottom flask through a siphon tube. the process was repeated until the dried algae powder turned into pale colour for an extraction time of 18 hours. the hot algae oil and the n-hexane solvent were separated using a steam distillation process. finally, 64 ml of salo was obtained, and 90% of the n-hexane was recovered. finally, the percentage of salo yield was calculated using equation 1. % yield of algae oil (wt%) = mass of oil extracted (grams) the total mass of dried algae powder or flakes × 100 (1) 2.2.3.2 oil expeller process (method ii) the second method used to extract salo is a mechanical screw-type oil expeller press technique. in this process, the algae oil was extracted using dried algae flakes (see fig. 4) without using solvents. to extract algae oil from the oil expeller press method, initially, 48 kg of wet algae paste was processed and finally, 14 kg of dried algae flakes were obtained. these flakes were positioned directly into the oil expeller and crushed in the local oil crushing machine unit, as shown in fig. 5b. finally, from the oil expeller process, 1680 ml of salo was extracted and 12 % of the oil yield was obtained. though this method does not require any chemicals to extract oil, it requires a huge quantity of algae biomass and it is tough to recover the traces of oil stored under the expeller. finally, the oil extraction rate of 70 to 75% is noted (mubarak et al., 2015), which is less than the solvent extraction process (topare et al., 2011). hence, it is evident that the solvent extraction method is more effective than the oil expeller press. the spirogyra algae oil extracted using methods i and ii signify that the solvent extraction method is more effective than the oil expeller method. therefore, the solvent extraction process was used to extract spirogyra algae oil (salo), and the spirogyra algae oil biodiesel (salobd) was prepared using the transesterification process. 2.2.4 catalyst preparation the consumption of eggs has increased vigorously in recent years after the outbreak of the alarming national situation. worldwide, 76.7 to 85.2 mmt (million metric tons) of eggs are consumed, with india, the us, the eu, and china ranking as the top four producers (kolakoti & satish, 2020). these chicken eggshell wastes (cesw) were relinquished to surroundings causing a rapid increase in environmental pollution. proper usage of the best out of this waste helps to reduce ecological defilement. in this context, the hc prepared from the cesw (piker et al., 2016) is one of the significant steps for preparing neat salobd. a sample of 11 nos. of the whole chicken egg shell waste was collected near the neighbourhood restaurant. further, cleaned with deionised water and gently wiped with filter paper. further, the egg shells covered inside with shrill layers were removed and dried in a hot air oven for 24 hours. the dried cesw are crushed into tiny parts and calcinated in a muffle furnace by maintaining 600oc for 8 hours, as shown in fig 6. pandit & fulekar, (2017) prepared catalyst by maintaining it at 900oc for about 8 to 9 hours. similarly, kolakoti & satish, (2020) performed an experimental investigation to prepare lowgrade cooking oil using heterogeneous catalysts from waste egg shells. after several experimental trials, the hc was found desirable at 600oc. finally, the product cao was stored for its expedited usage. fig. 5 (a) stages of the solvent extraction process (method i), (b) stages of oil expeller press process (method ii) t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 | 304 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 6 preparation of chicken eggshell waste as heterogeneous catalyst. 2.2.5 design of experiments by response surface method (rsm) the response surface method is one of the most accepted optimisation techniques for experimental conditions. it is one of the beneficial approaches to show the actual and predicted values by varying the significant parameters. this method fits well in various applications such as biodiesel yield prediction, composites, nanocomposite designs, etc. sohail et al., (2020) performed experimental investigations for the production of spirogyra biodiesel and determined their physicochemical properties. the biodiesel yield was optimised using response surface methodology. chemical and enzymatic behaviour for spirogyra biodiesel was determined by considering four significant parameters, viz., molar ratio, catalyst concentration, time, and temperature. the optimised yield was reported as (77.3 ± 1.27%) and in enzymatic transesterification, the yield attained was (93.2 ± 1.27%). in another area of study, tran et al., (2020) worked on a central composite design based on response surface methodology to reach the optimal dyes removal conditions, using graphene oxide@cofe2o4 nanocomposite for congo red (cr), methyl red (mr), and crystal violet (cv). the results obtained from confirmation tests exhibited very low errors and outstanding removal efficiencies attained between 93.0% and 99.7%. a similar approach is carried out by (tran et al., 2019) using an efficient optimisation technique and response surface methodology to optimise the experimental conditions for removing chloramphenicol pharmaceutical from wastewater using cu3(btc)2-derived porous carbon as an efficient adsorbent. also, the quadratic model was used to assess compatibility and suitability using anova analysis. the results reported that a low magnitude p-value (<0.0001) was obtained with a coefficient of determination r2 = 0.9457, and adequate precision (ap) ratio was observed to be close to 0.1. nguyen et al., (2022) examined the construction of zeolitic-imidazolate framework (zif-8) and zif-8-derived porous carbon using response surface methods. the findings showed that the quadratic regression models are statistically significant. hence based on the literature studies, an rsm optimisation technique is used to estimate the actual and predicted value of the biodiesel yield by varying the significant parameters such as hc, mr, temperature and time with 29 design of experiments using minitab -19 software. the four significant process constraints are shown in table 2. table 2 four process constraints with ranges constraints units low medium high heterogeneous catalyst (hc) (wt.%) 0.6 1.2 1.8 molar ratio (mr) ---8:1 10:1 12:1 temperature oc. 38 48 58 time mins 120 150 180 t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 | 305 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 7 stages of spirogyra algae biodiesel oil production with heterogeneous catalyst table 3 design experimental runs with experimental and rsm biodiesel yield percentages experimental runs hc temperature time mr exp. yield % rsm yield % 1 1.8 48 150 12 53.65 54.82 2 1.2 58 180 10 93.54 89.84 3 1.2 58 150 12 92.21 89.80 4 0.6 48 150 8 91.04 88.23 5 1.2 38 150 12 77.69 77.98 6 1.2 58 120 10 76.44 76.35 7 1.2 48 150 10 75.8 75.71 8 0.6 48 120 10 86.98 86.63 9 1.2 38 120 10 79.21 82.21 10 1.2 58 150 8 74.85 73.97 11 1.2 48 180 12 92.63 94.87 12 1.2 48 150 10 75.47 75.71 13 1.2 48 150 10 74.58 75.71 14 1.8 48 180 10 62.01 62.71 15 1.2 38 150 8 89.84 91.65 16 1.8 38 150 10 71.24 66.98 17 1.8 48 150 8 55.89 57.18 18 1.2 48 120 12 64.69 66.34 19 1.8 58 150 10 52.47 54.00 20 1.2 48 150 10 75.54 75.71 21 0.6 48 150 12 95.69 92.75 22 0.6 38 150 10 91.65 91.42 23 0.6 58 150 10 92.99 95.54 24 1.2 48 150 10 75.25 75.71 25 1.2 48 120 10 76.99 73.21 26 1.2 38 180 10 90.45 89.84 27 1.2 48 180 8 75.24 75.83 28 1.8 48 120 10 52.14 51.71 29 0.6 48 180 10 95.97 96.76 t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 |306 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 2.2.6 transesterification process the spirogyra algae oil (salo) obtained from the steam distillation process was heated up to 110oc, to remove the presence of water (h2o) content in the salo. furthermore, the salo fuel parameters were tested and it was reported that the kinematic viscosity was 19.20 mm2/s, density of 898.21 kg/m3, and ffa of 1.68 % (yadav et al., 2019). it is evident that the algae oil is reported with high kinematic viscosity, which is not recommended to use in the existing diesel engine. however, to reduce the kinematic viscosity of salo, a widely used transesterification process was performed to convert it into lowviscous salobd. initially, the raw salo oil was collected in a conical flask and positioned on a magnetic heater with a hot plate. further, heated until it reached the desired temperature and then a heterogeneous catalyst (cao) with methanol (ch3oh) was added. the mixture was stirred continuously using a magnetic stirrer, as shown in fig. 7. the catalyst (cao) was built up with an oxygen anion, which initiated to form a strong methoxide anion, thereby assisting the presence of triglycerides in the oil to transform diglycerides to monoglycerides. finally, esters and glycerine were formed. as represented in fig. 7, the hot mixture of biodiesel and heavy glycerine was transferred into a separatory flask. later, the glycerine was collected into a beaker, and the desired spirogyra algae oil biodiesel salobd was obtained. further, the salobd was washed with distilled water and shaken to remove the soap solution. finally, neat biodiesel was produced by heating the washed biodiesel to a temperature of 100 oc using a magnetic heater. the procedure was repeated by diversifying the four process constraints, as shown in table 3. the experimental approach of biodiesel yield (%) was calculated using equation 2. as shown in table 3, the rsm optimisation technique was repeated randomly with 29 experimental runs to obtain the predicted rsm biodiesel yield (%), which is presented in fig. 9 𝑆𝐴𝐿𝑂𝐵𝐷 𝑌𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑑(%) = 𝑊𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑦𝑟𝑎. 𝑎𝑙𝑔𝑎𝑒 𝑏𝑖𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑙 𝑊𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑦𝑟𝑎 𝑎𝑙𝑔𝑎𝑒 𝑜𝑖𝑙 × 100 (2) 3. result and discussions 3.1 comparison of salo yield using solvent extraction and oil expeller methods the spirogyra algae bloom was collected from two open ponds for 120 days (every 15 days) from january to may 2022, with a total weight of 158 kg. a net weight of 96 kg of fresh wet algae was obtained after cleaning and divided into two equal shares (48 kg each) to prepare dried algae powder and dried algae flakes. the oil is extracted using solvent extraction (method i) and an oil expeller press (method ii), and the oil yield percentages were estimated and compared. in solvent extraction, 48 kg of wet algae is separated layer by layer, from which 8 kg of dried algae powder was obtained. a sample of 300 grams of dried algae powder and 600 ml of n-hexane solvent was prepared in the ratio of 1:2 (dried algae powder: solvent), and 64 ml of salo was obtained after extraction. finally, from 8 kg of dried algae powder, 1707 ml of salo with an oil yield of 21.33% was obtained. whereas, in the oil expeller process, 48 kg of wet algae blooms were ground into a fine paste, transferred into a lab tray, and exposed to sunlight. 14 kg of dried algae flakes were obtained and pressed in the oil expeller. finally, 1680 ml of salo with 12 % of oil yield was obtained, as represented in table 4. therefore, based on the oil yield percentage, the solvent extraction method is more effective than the oil expeller method. it is evident from table 4 that the solvent extraction method i, with 21.33 % of algae oil yield, is effective compared with the oil expeller method ii, with 12 % of algae oil yield. 3.2 comparison of oil yield with different percentages of dried algae powder samples – method i three varied percentages (100 %, 75 %, and 50 %) of dried algae powder samples were used to estimate and compare the extracted oil yield with the effective solvent extraction process with the same extraction time and temperature. the salo yield obtained at various percentages of dried algae raw samples was presented in table 5. it is evident from table 5 that 21.33 % of algae oil yield was obtained from 100 % dried algae powder. similarly, 19.33 % of the algae oil yield was obtained from 75 % dried algae powder, and 18 % of the algae oil yield was obtained from 50 % dried algae powder. finally, the results confirmed that with 100% dried algae powder, the oil yield attained was higher and contained low moisture content compared with 75 % and 50 % dried algae powder. furthermore, when compared with the present study and reference study (konga et al., 2017), an increase of 4.55 % in algae oil yield was observed at 100% dried algae powder. similarly, 15.05 % improvement was observed near 75 % dried algae powder and 18.42 % improvement was observed near 50 % dry dried algae powder. the improvement in algae oil yield for three dryness samples, compared with the present and reference study, were indicated in fig. 8 table 4 algae oil extraction using chemical and mechanical methods description method i method ii method of extraction solvent oil expeller press apparatus soxhlet screw type treatment form spirogyra dried algae powder spirogyra dried algae flakes solvent mixing nhexane --- weight of the dried algae (kg) 8 14 algae oil obtained (litres) 1.707 1.680 % yield of algae oil (%) 21.33 12 t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 |307 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore table 5 effect of percentage dried algae sample and comparison of spirogyra algae oil yield obtained using a solvent extraction process no. description method i 1 dryness (%) of algae samples 100 75 50 2 extraction method solvent solvent solvent 3 form dried algae powder dried algae powder dried algae powder 4 time (hrs.) 18 18 18 5 temperature (oc) 65 65 65 6 sample wt. (kg) 0.3 0.3 0.3 7 total wt. of dried algae powder (kg) 8 8 8 8 total algae oil yield (litres) 1.707 1.624 1.512 9 % yield of algae oil (present study) 21.33 19.33 18 10 % yield of algae oil (konga et al., 2017) 20.4 16.80 15.20 11 improvement (%) 4.55 15.05 18.42 fig. 8 improvement in algae oil yield for three dryness samples compared with present and reference study 3.3 model fitting using the rsm optimisation technique, the four process constraints indicated in table 2 were varied for 29 design of experiments (doe), as shown in table 3. the maximum amount of experimental biodiesel yield of 95.97 % was achieved at mr (10:1), hc (0.6 %-wt), temperature (48oc), and time (180 minutes). however, for the same process constraints, the rsm biodiesel yield attained was 96.76 %, as shown in fig. 9. finally, three confirmation tests were conducted under the same conditions and revealed that 96.18% of the average salobd yield was achieved when compared with the experimental biodiesel yield. equation 3 represents a quadratic equation that was generated to calculate the relation between the salo biodiesel yield and the four process constraints for the 29 doe. the model summary of accuracy was estimated by the coefficient of determination. from fig. 10, the r2 value representing actual and predicted biodiesel yield for 29 doe attained was 97.51%, confirming ≥ 97% of the data was consistent with the achieved values. salo biodiesel yield % = 694 + 50.9 hc 9.39 temperature 2.498 time 46.06 mr 11.22 hc*hc + 0.0607 temperature*temperature + 0.00309 time*time + 0.394 mr*mr 0.838 hc*temperature + 0.0122 hc*time 1.44 hc*mr + 0.00488 temperature*time + 0.3689 temperature*mr + 0.1497 time*mr (3) furthermore, the adjusted r2 attained was 95.02 %, which affirms that the quality and fitness of the model picked were quite encouraging and concluded that the values predicted fit well with experimental values. hence the optimisation technique proved that the model is satisfactory in estimating the biodiesel yield from salo. 3.4 the analysis of variance (anova) the influence of four process constraints (hc, mr, temperature, and time) is beneficial in attaining maximum t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 | 308 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore biodiesel yield. the significant changes in process parameters during the transesterification process until biodiesel preparation were analysed using anova analysis. it was apparent in table 6 that the hc was observed as an influencing parameter, followed by the time. 3.5 free fatty acid analysis the free fatty acid (ffa) composition significantly impacted the fuel properties, specifically density, viscosity, cetane number, and calorific value. the fatty acid composition (fac) profile was tested using gas chromatography (gcms), and the results of the present study with the saturated and unsaturated composition were reported in table 7. it is evident from table 7 that the total saturated composition was reported as 68.39 wt.% and the unsaturated composition was 29.3 wt.%. as shown in fig.11 and fig. 12, the significant contribution of saturated fac was palmitic acid with 24.84 wt.%, and unsaturated fac was oleic acid with 26.12 wt.%. therefore, from table 7, it was apparent that the composition of the ffa profile in the present study was observed with very close compositions compared with the available literature studies. finally, the fac of the spirogyra biodiesel falls in good agreement compared with the literature studies. fig. 9 experimental and rsm biodiesel yield fig. 10 actual and predicted biodiesel yield interpretation t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 | 309 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore table 6 the analysis of variance (anova) source dof sum of squares mean square f-value p-value model 14 5060.84 361.49 39.14 <0.0001 linear 4 3905.85 976.46 105.73 <0.0001 hc 1 3567.99 3567.99 386.33 <0.0001 temperature 1 25.75 25.75 2.79 0.117 time 1 311.36 311.36 33.71 <0.0001 mr 1 2.93 2.93 0.32 0.582 square 4 462.46 115.62 12.52 <0.0001 hc*hc 1 107.01 107.01 11.59 0.004 temperature*temperature 1 241.52 241.52 26.15 <0.0001 time*time 1 47.00 47.00 5.09 0.041 mr*mr 1 14.65 14.65 1.59 0.228 2-way interaction 6 545.12 90.85 9.84 <0.0001 hc*temperature 1 101.10 101.10 10.95 0.005 hc*time 1 0.19 0.19 0.02 0.887 hc*mr 1 11.87 11.87 1.29 0.276 temperature*time 1 8.58 8.58 0.93 0.351 temperature*mr 1 217.71 217.71 23.57 <0.0001 time*mr 1 205.66 205.66 22.27 <0.0001 error 14 129.30 9.24 lack-of-fit 10 128.45 12.84 60.20 0.001 pure error 4 0.85 0.21 total 28 5190.14 table 7 comparison of fatty acid composition profiles composition type wt.% spirogyra algae (kumar et al., 2020) present study reference (chozhavendhan et al., 2020) reference (richmond, 2004) arachidic acid saturated 2.1 0.3 1.28 2.24 behenic acid saturated 1.55 0.2 1.39 0.33 capric acid saturated 0.41 0.3 0.3 caprylic acid saturated 0.55 0.3 0.3 lauric acid saturated 22.68 29.9 21.90 linoleic acid unsaturated 3.18 2.5 2.5 4.88 myristic acid saturated 13.05 17.0 15.29 oleic acid unsaturated 26.12 30.5 21.62 54.89 palmitic acid saturated 24.84 14.2 28.63 15.64 stearic acid saturated 3.21 3.0 4.86 2.10 other 2.31 1.8 1.28 3.6 fuel property analysis biodiesel fuel plays a crucial role in commercialisation and have the ability to compete with diesel fuels. the salobd produced from the transesterification process is characterised by vital fuel properties: density, kinematic viscosity, cetane number, calorific value, pour point, cloud point, flash point, and fire point, as shown in table 8. the earlier studies on biodiesel fuels stated that the vital properties of the fuel, like flash point, fire point, and cetane number, are higher than diesel fuel. this signifies a positive indicator to depot fuel and the retard time during combustion is lower for biodiesels (kalyani et al., 2023). also, biodiesel fuels with high viscosity, density, and low calorific value, report an adverse effect on the engine operating characteristics. one reason for these variations is the appearance of unsaturated and saturated fac. t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 | 310 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 11 gcms spectrum for palmitic acid fig. 12 gcms spectrum for oleic acid . table 8 key fuel properties of spirogyra algae oil biodiesel properties units astm d6751 (kalyani et al., 2023) diesel (kalyani et al., 2023)(saeed et al., 2021) salobd (present study) microalgae (kalyani et al., 2023); (kalyani et al., 2023)(pilotorodríguez et al., 2017) kinematic viscosity mm2/sec 3.5 to 5.0 2.75 4.24 2 to 5.2 density kg/m3 860 to 890 831 888 850 to 870 cetane number min 51 48 53.86 37 to 72 calorific value mj/kg 44 42.1 37 to 41 pour point oc -15 to -16 -13 5.8 6 cloud point oc -3 to -12 12.4 flash point oc min 120 86 145 115 fire point oc min 132 96 153 it is evident from table 8 that the kinematic viscosity and density of salobd are 54.18 % and 6.85 % higher compared to mineral diesel fuel. this change may result in an increase in fuel consumption and a decrease in brake thermal efficiency. the increase may be due to the presence of long-chain fatty acids, i.e. palmitic acid (fig. 11). the flash point and fire point temperatures were observed to be high in salobd. this is due to the rise in carbon number from saturated fatty acids like palmitic acids, a beneficial sign for storage and safe handling. furthermore, the cetane number (cn) of salobd was reported with an increment of 12.20 % than the diesel fuel due to the high composition of saturated fac. for better engine performance, the increment in cetane number is always recommended since it restricts the delay period during combustion. a low calorific value was identified in salobd compared to mineral diesel fuel due to the existence of zero sulphur and low hydrocarbons (kolakoti et al., 2022). lastly, the vital fuel properties of salobd, associated with the literature (piloto-rodríguez et al., 2017) observed to be in a close relationship, make biodiesel fuels suitable for the smooth operation of the existing diesel engine. 4. conclusions chicken eggshell waste (cesw) prepared as a heterogeneous catalyst (hc) was effectively tested on the spirogyra algae oil (salo) for the production of biodiesel. with the emergence of the rsm optimisation technique, a better yield was attained. based on the experimental investigations, the following conclusions were drawn. the spirogyra used in this study is naturally grown in an open pond, and it was collected every 15 days a month for 120 days without using any cultivation process, nutrients, or chemicals. the maximum salo yield obtained was 21.33% for the solvent extraction process and 12% salo yield for the oil expeller press process, which confirms that the solvent extraction process was more effective than the oil expeller method. it was observed that the oil yield percentage of salo achieved an increment of 4.55 % over the reference study. about 96.18 % of the salo biodiesel yield was attained during the transesterification process. the analysis of variance (anova) confirmed that the heterogeneous catalyst concentration followed by time is the most influencing constraint. the key fuel properties of the present study compared with the literature studies are observed within the t. kalyani et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(2), 300-312 | 311 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore range of astm d6751. therefore, using chicken eggshell waste (cesw) for biodiesel production, especially for spirogyra algae oil, was recommended as a diesel fuel replacement to resist the energy and environmental calamities. author contributions: t.k.: conceptualization, data curation, investigation, methodology, formal analysis, writing—original draft, writing – review & editing., l.s.v.; formal 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(2019). experimental study on emissions of algal biodiesel and its blends on a diesel engine. journal of the taiwan institute of chemical engineers, 96, 160–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2018.10.022 © 2023. the author(s). this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution-sharealike 4.0 (cc by-sa) international license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470995280 https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212737 https://doi.org/10.3390/catal10101214 https://doi.org/10.31603/ae.5986 https://www.tsijournals.com/articles/extraction-of-oil-from-algae-by-solvent-extraction-and-oil-expeller-method.pdf https://www.tsijournals.com/articles/extraction-of-oil-from-algae-by-solvent-extraction-and-oil-expeller-method.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crci.2019.09.004 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfin.2020.100687 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2018.10.022 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023, 12 (3), 590-600 | 590 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.52835 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id the application of equilibrium optimizer for solving modern economic load dispatch problem considering renewable energies and multiple-fuel thermal units hung duc nguyena,b* , khoa hoang truonga,b , nhuan an lea,b adepartment of power delivery, ho chi minh city university of technology (hcmut), 268 ly thuong kiet street, district 10, ho chi minh city, vietnam bvietnam national university ho chi minh city, linh trung ward, thu duc city, ho chi minh city, vietnam abstract. this study presents a modern version of the economic load dispatch (meld) problem with the contribution of renewable energies and conventional energy, including wind, solar and thermal power plants. in the study, reduction of electricity generation cost is the first priority, while the use of multiple fuels in the thermal power plant is considered in addition to the consideration of all constraints of power plants. two meta-heuristic algorithms, one conventional and one recently published, including particle swarm optimization (pso) and equilibrium optimizer (eo), are applied to determine the optimal solutions for meld. a power system with ten thermal power plants using multiple fossil fuels, one wind power plant, and three solar power plants is utilized to evaluate the performance of both pso and eo. unlike other previous studies, this paper considers the meld problem with the change of load demands over one day with 24 periods as a real power system. in addition, the power generated by both wind and solar power plants varies at each period. the results obtained by applying the two algorithms indicate that eo is completely superior to pso, and the solutions found by eo can satisfy all constraints. particularly in case 1 with different load demand values, eo achieves better total electricity production cost (tegc) than pso by 0.75%, 0.87%, 0.13%, and 0.45% for the loads of 2400 mw, 2500 mw, 2600 mw and 2700 mw. moreover, eo also provides a faster response capability over pso through the four subcases although eo and pso are run by the same selection of control parameters. in case 2, the high efficiency provided by eo is still maintained, though the scale of the considered problem has been substantially enlarged. specifically, eo can save $51.2 compared to pso for the minimum tegc. the savings cost is equal to 0.33% for the whole schedule of 24 hours. with these results, eo is acknowledged as a favourable search method for dealing with the meld problem. besides, this study also points out the difference in performance between a modern meta-heuristic algorithm (eo) and the classical one (pso). the modern metaheuristic algorithm with special structure is highly valuable for complicated problem as meld. keywords: economic load dispatch; particle swarm optimization; equilibrium optimizer; multiple fuels; thermal generator; renewable energies. @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 25th feb 2023; revised: 16th april 2023; accepted: 26th april 2023 ; available online: 1st may 2023 1. introduction economic load dispatch (eld) is considered one of the most crucial problems in power system operation. the determination of an optimal solution to eld allows the operators to save more operation cost and reduce environmental damage (xiang et al., 2021). nowadays, the concept of the conventional economic load dispatch (celd) is obsoleted and does not fit modern power systems anymore because of its static nature. in addition, celd only considers thermal generators as the sole generating source. however, the modern economic load dispatch (meld) was updated once multiple objective functions and renewable energy sources (res) (zhang et al., 2021; shen et al., 2019; li et al., 2020) were taken into account. specifically, several objective functions can be listed, such as reducing the total electricity generating cost (tegc), reducing the entire emissions (ree), etc. these objectives can be considered simultaneously or separately, depending on the different targets such as financial factor or/and technical factor. besides, both celd and meld have a lot in common, such as the set of related constraints and * corresponding author email: hungnd@hcmut.edu.vn (h.d.nguyen) the type of variable needed to be found. in terms of related constraints, several typical constraints can be named, such as the power balance constraint, the generator operational constraints, the multiple fuel constraint, etc. about the types of variables when dealing with both celd and meld problems, there are two of them, including the control and the dependent variables. these variables must be defined prior to any kind of computation. particularly with these mentioned problems, control variables are the power generated by all the existent generators in the system except for the first generator, which is considered the dependent variable. in the whole process of solving such celd and meld problems, an optimal solution is acknowledged if only both control variables and dependent variables satisfy all the related constraints with the minimum value of the fitness function. the types of res integrated with power systems are mainly solar and wind energies. therefore, the thermal, wind and solar power plants supply enough power to loads in meld, while only thermal power plants are in charge of the role in celd (hlalele et al., 2021; kim and kim, 2020). in research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.52835 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.52835 mailto:hungnd@hcmut.edu.vn https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7831-3814 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1237-0071 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3880-471x http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.52835&domain=pdf h.d.nguyen et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 590-600 |591 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore this study, meld problem with the integration of res into thermal power plants is solved. at the beginning of the foundation for the celd problem, the solution for the problem is commonly given by the old fashion computing methods such as the gradient method, the quadratic method, and the conventional iterative method. the real efficiency of these methods seems to be good and acceptable as the theorem study. however, at the time, meld is widely studied and the scale of the problem is enlarged so much over celd. besides, many complicate constraints are also taken into account. as a result, the whole complicated degree of meld is increased substantially. the application of old fashion computing methods begins showing more drawbacks such as a low response, a poor accuracy. luckily, in two past decades, computing methods have witnessed a huge leap forward in meta-heuristic methods to cope with highdegree complicated problems. there have been a huge number of meta-heuristic applied to meld problem, such as genetic algorithm (ga) (chen and chang, 1995), particle swarm optimization (pso) (park et al., 2005), artificial algae algorithm (aaa) (kumar and dhillon, 2018), modified differential evolution (mde) (nguyen et al., 2018), grey wolf optimal (pradhan et al., 2016), tunicate swarm optimizer (tso) in (hien et al., 2021), differential evolution (de) in (parouha and das, 2018), improved firework algorithm (ifa) (zare et al., 2021), quantum pso (qpso) (xin-gang et al., 2020), improved manta ray optimization (imro) (hassan et al., 2021), simplex search-based pso (ssm-pso) (chopra et al., 2021), improved bird swarm optimization (ibso) (fu et al., 2020), distributed roust optimization (dro) (chang et al., 2021), hybrid grey wolf optimizer (al-betar et al., 2020), pattern search and sequential quadratic programing-based genetic algorithm (ps-sqp-ga) (alsumait et al., 2010), double weight-based pso (dw-pso) (kheshti et al., 2018), improved bacterial foraging algorithm (ibfa) (pandit et al., 2012), acceleration coefficients-based pso (ac-pso) (ghasemi et al., 2019), nondominated sorting-based genetic algorithm (nsga) (basu, 2008), chaotic differential evolution (cde) (coelho and mariani, 2006), biogeography optimization (bo) (xiong and shi, 2018), and ameliorated dragonfly algorithm (ada) (suresh et al., 2019). these algorithms have shown a good performance as compared to deterministic algorithms based on lagrange relaxation, newton, gradient search (vaisakh and reddy, 2013; nguyen et al., 2019); however, these algorithms have not been applied to deal with the complex fuel cost functions of thermal units with three fuel options (chen et al., 2020; pham et al., 2022). multiple fuel options can be used for generating units in thermal power plants and the different options can bring more benefits to thermal power plants. but the units with several fuel options can bring more challenges to optimization tools since the generation of unit is not continuous within allowable ranges (dieu et al., 2013; jeyakumar et al., 2006). almost applied algorithms for the multiple fuel units are strong and not much dependent on lagrange function, excluding augmented lagrange hopfield network (alhn) (dieu et al., 2013). in fact, these applied methods are comprised of modified pso (jeyakumar et al., 2006), differential evolution (noman and iba, 2008), selfadaptive differential evolution (sde) (balamurugan and subramanian, 2007), adaptive real coded genetic algorithm (arc-ga) (amjady and nasiri-rad, 2010), and improved evolutionary programming (iep) (park et al., 1998). these algorithms have reported good results with minimum fuel cost and high stable search ability; however, the search speed was almost neglected once the comparison of setting parameters was not implemented. in this study, the original version of pso (kennedy and eberhart, 1995) and one modern meta-heuristic algorithm called equilibrium optimizer (eo) (faramarzi et al., 2020) are applied to determine the optimal solution for meld with multiple fuel options and renewable energies. the multiple fuel options are examined in the operation cost function belonging to thermal generators. the renewable generating sources, including one wind farm and three solar power plants, and the variation of power output values from these sources within 24 hours are included. the first priority of this study is to reduce the total operation cost as much as possible. the application of both eo and pso is considered to be a good example for evaluating the performance of a modern meta-heuristic algorithm and a classical algorithm. briefly, the novelties of this study can be seen on different aspects, including proposing the meld problem where varied load demands are employed with a day and the 24-single periods, the variation of power generated from both wind and solar power plants is examined throughout the 24 periods, and the difference in raw performance between the modern metaheuristic algorithm and the classical one is clarified and pointed out based on the results. the key contributions of the study are stated in the four claims. firstly, the proposed meld is successfully solved considering the presence of both solar and wind power plants. secondly, the optimal solution for meld is determined under the consideration of the multiple fuel constraints. thirdly, eo is proved to be the best applied method for the proposed problem through the comparisons of the results reached by pso and other previous studies. lastly, the superiority of a modern meta-heuristic algorithm (eo) over the classical one (pso) is proved and demonstrated by results and figures. in this study, two power systems with different complicated levels are considered for reaching the objective function of reducing the total electric generation cost over optimal schedule horizon, one hour for the first system and 24 hours for the second system. the two systems use the same ten thermal generating units in which each thermal generating unit can use two or three fuel types for electric production. the total cost values from the two systems are comparison criteria to evaluating the performance of eo and other algorithms. 2. problem descriptions. 2.1 main objective function as mentioned earlier, there are three types of generating sources in this study, including thermal power plants, wind power plants, and solar power plants. however, only the operation process of thermal generators consumes fossil fuels. so, the major target of the problem is to reduce the total electricity generation cost (tegc) from thermal power plants. the target can be formulated as follows. 𝑅𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑇𝐸𝐺𝐶 = ∑ 𝐸𝐺𝐶𝑔 𝐺 𝑔=1 (1) where egcg ($/h) is the fuel cost of the gth thermal generator and formulated by (park et al., 2005): 𝐸𝐺𝐶𝑔 = 𝑔 + 𝛿𝑔𝑃𝐺𝑔 + 𝛾𝑔𝑃𝐺𝑔 2 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑔 = 1,…,𝐺 (2) tegc is the total fuel cost of all g generators working in one hour meanwhile 𝐸𝐺𝐶𝑔 is the fuel cost of one generator only. so, the unit of tegc is $ but that is $/h for egcg. the cost function of the thermal generator, 𝐸𝐺𝐶𝑔described in equation (2) is depicted at fig.1a. h.d.nguyen et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 590-600 |592 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore fig. 1 models of fuel cost function for thermal units: a) one fuel option; b) multiple fuel options in addition, the multiple fuels aspect is also considered in this study, as shown in fig. 1b. according to (dieu et al., 2013), the mathematical expression of 𝐸𝐺𝐶𝑔 is represented by: 𝐸𝐺𝐶𝑔 = { 𝑔1 + 𝛿𝑔1𝑃𝐺𝑔 + 𝛾𝑔1𝑃𝐺𝑔 2 , 𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙 1,𝑃𝐺𝑔1,𝑙𝑠 ≤ 𝑃𝐺𝑔 ≤ 𝑃𝐺𝑔1,ℎ𝑠 𝑔2 + 𝛿𝑔2𝑃𝐺𝑔 + 𝛾𝑔2𝑃𝐺𝑔 2 , 𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙 2,𝑃𝐺𝑔2,𝑙𝑠 ≤ 𝑃𝐺𝑔 ≤ 𝑃𝐺𝑔2,ℎ𝑠 … 𝑔𝑤 + 𝛿𝑔𝑤𝑃𝐺𝑔 + 𝛾𝑔𝑤𝑃𝐺𝑔 2, 𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙 𝑤,𝑃𝐺𝑔𝑤,𝑙𝑠 ≤ 𝑃𝐺𝑔 ≤ 𝑃𝐺𝑔𝑤,ℎ𝑠 (3) where 𝑔1, 𝛿𝑔1, and 𝛾𝑔1 are fuel consumption factors while using fuel 1 of generator g; 𝑃𝐺𝑔1,𝑙𝑠 and 𝑃𝐺𝑔1,ℎ𝑠 are the lowest and highest power generated by generator g whilst using fuel 1. similarly, 𝑔2, 𝛿𝑔2 and 𝛾𝑔2 are fuel consumption factors of generator g whilst using fuel 2. 𝑃𝐺𝑔2,𝑙𝑠 and 𝑃𝐺𝑔2,ℎ𝑠 are the lowest and highest power generated by generator g whilst using the fuel 2. finally, 𝑔𝑤, 𝛿𝑔𝑤, and 𝛾𝑔𝑤 are fuel consumption factors while using the fuel 𝑤 of generator g; and 𝑃𝐺𝑔𝑤,𝑙𝑠 and 𝑃𝐺𝑔𝑤,ℎ𝑠 are the lowest and highest power generated by generator g whilst using the fuel 𝑤. 2.2 constraints there are important constraints that must be respected while solving both celd and meld. they are described one by one as follows: • power balance constraint: this constraint is mainly about the relationship between the generating side and the demand side. according to (duong et al., 2021), the mathematical expression of the constraint is presented by eq 4: 𝑃𝐷 + 𝑃𝐿 = ∑ 𝑃𝐺𝑔 𝐺 𝑔=1 + 𝑃𝑊 + 𝑃𝑆 (4) in equation (4), pl is calculated by using the equation (5) below (dieu et al., 2013): 𝑃𝐿 = ∑ ∑ 𝑃𝐺𝑔𝐵𝑔ℎ𝑃𝐺ℎ 𝐺 ℎ=1 𝐺 𝑔=1 + ∑ 𝐵0𝑔𝑃𝐺𝑔 𝐺 𝑔=1 + 𝐵00 (5) • generator operational constraints: this constraint is about the working limit belonging to thermal generators. that means power output must allocate in the allowed range as depicted in equation (6). besides, the working limitation of a typical thermal generator is illustrated in fig. 2. according to (dieu et al., 2013), this constraint is formulated as follow: 𝑃𝐺𝑔,𝑚𝑖𝑛 ≤ 𝑃𝐺𝑔 ≤ 𝑃𝐺𝑔,𝑚𝑎𝑥 (6) • the electricity producing constraint of solar power plant: according to (phan et al., 2021) the power generated by solar power plant is limited as follows: ∑𝑃𝑆𝐺,𝑞 𝑁𝑆 𝑞 ≤ 80% × 𝑃𝐷 (7) 𝑃𝑆𝐺,𝑞 𝑚𝑖𝑛 ≤ |𝑃𝑆𝐺,𝑞| ≤ 𝑃𝑆𝐺,𝑞 𝑚𝑎𝑥 (8) 3. the applied methods to determine the optimal solution for meld in this study, two meta-heuristic methods, particle swarm optimization (pso) (kennedy and eberhart, 1995) and equilibrium optimizer (eo) (faramarzi et al., 2020) are applied to solve the given problem. pso is inspired by the foraging practice of animal swarms in real life such as fish, bird, ox, etc., while eo is inspired by physical law named equilibrium state of mass. the key difference between pso and eo is their update process for new solutions, which will be described in the following subsections: fig. 2 the working limitation of a thermal generator h.d.nguyen et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 590-600 |593 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 3.1 the original version of pso the update process for new solutions belonging to pso includes two main steps: the velocity update and the new position update. these steps are clarified by mathematical equations (9) and (10) as follows: 𝑉𝑖 𝑛𝑒𝑤 = 𝑉𝑖 + 𝑐𝑞1 × 𝛾1 × (𝑃𝐵𝑒𝑠𝑡,𝑖 − 𝑃𝑖) + 𝑐𝑞2 × 𝛾2 × (𝑃𝐺𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡,𝑖 − 𝑃𝑖) (9) 𝑃𝑖 𝑛𝑒𝑤 = 𝑃𝑖 + 𝑉𝑖 𝑛𝑒𝑤 (10) 3.2 the equilibrium optimizer (eo) the update process of eo is conducted based on the references around the four best solutions at each iteration. the key elements of the whole process are described as follows: 𝑆𝑖 𝑛𝑒𝑤 = 𝑆𝑠 + (𝑆𝑖 − 𝑆𝑠)𝐸𝑥 + 𝐺𝑒 𝑣𝑟 (1 − 𝐸𝑥) 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑖 = 1, . . . ,𝑁𝑃 (11) in equation (11), the exponential term (ex) and the generation rate (ge) are calculated by using the equations below: 𝐸𝑥 = 𝜃1𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛(𝜔 − 0.5)(𝑒 −𝑡𝑓.𝑣𝑟 − 1) (12) where 𝜃1 is set by 2, and the integer number (𝜔) is a random value between 0 and 1. besides, the time length factor (𝑡𝑓) is a value that changes with each iteration, and its value depends entirely on the maximum iteration number (𝐼𝑡𝑀𝑎𝑥) and the current iteration number (𝐼𝑡). 𝑡𝑓 can be determined by using the equation (13) 𝑡𝑓 = (1 − 𝐻 𝐻𝑀𝑎𝑥 ) 𝜃2( 𝐻 𝐻𝑀𝑎𝑥 ) (13) where 𝛽2 is set by 1 (faramarzi et al., 2020), 𝐻 is the current iteration, and 𝐻𝑀𝑎𝑥 is the maximum quantity of iteration. about the generation rate (ge), this term can be found by using the equation (14) below: 𝐺𝑒 = 𝐸𝑥.𝛿.(𝑆𝑠 − 𝑣𝑟.𝑆𝑖) (14) where, 𝛿 = { 𝑟𝑑3 2 𝑖𝑓 𝑟𝑑4 ≥ 𝑐𝑓 0 𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒 (15) where 𝒄𝒇 is set by 0.5 (faramarzi et al., 2020). 4. results and discussions the study is conducted on a personal computer with a central processing unit (cpu) of 2.0 ghz and 8 gb of random-access memory (ram). the coding is implemented in matlab software with version 2018b. the two study cases are implemented as follows: study case 1: the system with ten thermal units using multiple fuels for four load demand cases, including 2400, 2500, 2600, and 2700 mw. data of the system is taken from (park et al., 1998). study case 2: one wind and three solar photovoltaic power plants are integrated into the above ten-unit system. the power output supplied by wind farms and solar power plants over one day are taken from the studies (zhang et al., 2017) and (augusteen et al., 2016), respectively. fig. 3 the results obtained by pso and eo after 50 independent runs corresponding to different load demand values: a) load of 2400mw, b) load of 2500mw, c) load of 2600mw, and d) load of 2700mw h.d.nguyen et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 590-600 |594 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 4.1 the determination of population and maximum iteration initially, the determination of optimal settings for the initial control parameters, including population and maximum iteration, is one of the first hurdles that must be overcome. to deal with the first hurdle, different simulations have been conducted before the certain values for the population and the maximum number of iterations are established. due to the high complexity posted by the set of constraints, the large scale of search space explicitly seen in case 2, and the non-convex characteristic of both celd and meld, eo and pso are executed with different settings of population and maximum iteration. for study case 1, the population is set to 30, 40, 50, and 60, respectively. the maximum iteration is also varied from 80, 90, 100, and 150, respectively. the results obtained by all experiments revealed that the value of the population strongly influences the quality of the solutions and the execution time of each iteration, while the iteration number highly involves the quality of the solutions and the execution time of an independent run. as a result, when the population is set to a high value, the quality of the solutions will be improved; however, each iteration will require more time to complete. if maximum iteration is fixed at a high value, the quality of the solution at the end of each independent run could be enhanced, but more time would be consumed to finish a run. more importantly, if both population and maximum iteration are set to large values, the applied methods will result in the same optimal solutions after a long execution time. in that circumstance, the performance of the two applied methods cannot be evaluated precisely and reliably. by analysing the results obtained by the mentioned experiments, 50 and 100 are considered the optimal setting for population and maximum iteration. these settings also perfectly serve the initial purpose of evaluating the performance of the eo and pso. study case 2 is more complicated than study case 1 by considering 24 periods instead of one period. the setting of case 1 is applied for each hour of case 2. so, case 2 takes more simulation time than case 1 as a result. 4.2 results of case 1 fig. 3 presents the results obtained by pso and eo for 50 trial runs. the four subfigures have the same characteristic that eo can reach approximately the same solution for over 50 runs but those from pso highly fluctuate. in addition, pso cannot reach the same best solution as eo. fig. 4 shows the best run of pso and eo for the four cases. specifically, for the first load demand case with 2400 mw, eo only needs over 50 iterations to reach the best value of the considered fitness function, while pso cannot perform the same even if the last iteration is used on this best run. for the last three cases of load demand, eo still maintains its fast-response capability over pso by reaching the fitness value with fewer iterations. particularly, with load demands of 2500, 2600, and 2700 (mw), eo also requires approximately 60 iterations to obtain the best value, while pso cannot achieve any similar value on the three comparisons. clearly, eo is much faster than pso in finding the most optimal generation solutions. fig. 5 shows the best cost for the four cases obtained by pso, eo and other methods. in the figure, pso is the worst method while eo can reach the same or slightly smaller cost than others. it should be emphasized here that eo only search solution by using 50 and 100 for population and iterations, whereas others must use higher than 100 for iterations excluding alhn (dieu et al., 2013), which is a deterministic algorithm. because of this evidence, the superiority of eo over other previous methods is not deniable, so this study focuses on analyzing the efficiency of eo and pso for each subfigure corresponding to each level of load demand. particularly, in the first case of load demand in fig. 5 with 2400 mw, the tegc achieved by eo is only $481.723, while the similar value obtained by pso is up to $485.317. the savings cost saved by eo over pso in this case is approximately $3.6, corresponding to 0.75%. on the three remaining load demand levels, the tgec values achieved by eo are, respectively, $526.239, $574.381, and $623.809. the similar values resulted by pso are, fig. 4 the best convergences obtained by pso and eo among 50 independent runs corresponding to different load demand values: a) load of 2400mw, b) load of 2500mw, c) load of 2600mw, and d) load of 2700mw h.d.nguyen et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 590-600 |595 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore respectively, $530.826, $575.128, and $626.259. the savings costs saved by eo over pso in these cases are $4.587, $0.747, and $2.784, corresponding to 0.87%, 0.13%, and 0.45%, respectively. as stated in the study (nguyen et al., 2021), a method with better minimum, mean and maximum objective function is more effective than others. so, eo is more suitable than pso for the system. 4.3 the results of case 2 in the study case, the integrated system supplies electricity to loads over 24 hours as shown in fig. 6. in addition, the generation of the wind and solar photovoltaic power plants are also given in fig. 6. both pso and eo are applied to determine the optimal generation of the ten thermal generators and the summary of 50 runs is given in fig. 7. in the figure, three comparison criteria are employed to analyse the efficiency of the two applied methods while dealing with the larger scale of the meld problem, including the minimum tegc within 24 hours (minimum), average tegc within 24 hours (average), and maximum tegc within 24 hours (maximum). the green bars stand for the results obtained by pso, while the blue ones represent the similar values achieved by eo. for the first criterion, eo achieves $15384.5 of the tegc, while that of pso is $15435.7. it is easy to figure out that eo has saved $51.2, or 0.33%, over pso on this criterion in an operation day. next, in fig. 5 the comparison between two applied methods and other methods on different values of load demand: : a) load of 2400mw, b) load of 2500mw, c) load of 2600mw, and d) load of 2700mw fig. 6 load demand and generation of wind and solar plants over 24 hours 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 4 0 0 2 4 0 0 2 4 0 0 3 3 0 0 3 3 0 0 3 3 0 0 3 3 0 0 3 3 0 0 3 4 0 0 3 4 0 0 3 3 0 0 3 3 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 p o w e r fr o m s o la r a n d w in d p o w e r p la n ts ( m w ) p o w e r d e m a n d ( m w ) hour power demand (mw) wind power (mw) solar power (mw) h.d.nguyen et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 590-600 |596 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore the average and maximum criteria, the savings costs saved by eo over pso are even larger. specifically, the savings costs in these criteria are $325.7 and $1132.1, corresponding to 2.12% and 7.31%, respectively. clearly, eo completely outperforms pso while dealing with the large-scale meld. fig. 8 shows the fuel cost at each hour for the best, mean, and worst solutions of over 50 solutions obtained by pso and eo, corresponding with the subfigures a, b, and c. in terms of the best solution presented in fig. 8a, eo always offers a better value of tegc per hour. particularly, regardless of the variation in load demand within 24 hours, the tegc values found by eo at each hour are lower than the ones obtained by pso at the same time. however, the differences between the tegc values resulting from eo compared to the similar ones belonging to fig. 7 summary of 50 runs found by pso and eo 15435.7 15720.3 16624.9 15384.5 15394.6 15492.8 14500 15000 15500 16000 16500 17000 minimum average maximum t e g c ( $ ) pso eo fig. 8 the tegc of each hour obtained by pso and eo: a) tegc of the best run, b) tegc of the mean run, c) tegc of the worst run h.d.nguyen et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 590-600 |597 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore pso are not much in fig. 8a. hence, the outstanding characteristics of eo over pso are not clearly shown. in fig. 8b, the efficiency of a modern meta-heuristic algorithm such as eo starts to reveal itself. in the figure, the contrast in tegc values obtained by eo and pso starts to depart from each other in all hours and is easy to observe. eo always results in lower values of tegc over pso throughout the 24 hours. noticeably, the tegcs found by eo are always better than pso even in the high load demand hours. finally, the observations on fig. 8c indicate that the high efficiency of eo is enhanced when compared to pso. particularly, the better degree of tegc values resulted by eo can be seen vividly for 24 hours, regardless of high demand hours or low demand ones. in addition to that, the tegc values from 8 to 17 hours found by eo compared pso are substantially better than the same period as mentioned in fig. 8b. the most optimal generations for the ten thermal units corresponding to the best solution are reported in fig. 9. in general, the generation rate of the units is dependent on the load level at each hour and units with higher generation is more effective than units with lower generation. 4.3 discussion on performance of eo and on renewable energies eo is a metaheuristic algorithm mainly based on randomization, exploitation, and exploration. randomization is a general characteristic for approximately all algorithms belonging to the metaheuristic family. so, eo as well as pso are sensitive to settings of population, iterations and run number, leading to different results for the number of trials. because of the unexpected characteristic, eo has been implemented for 50 trials for each study case to summarize the best, mean and worst results for comparisons. fig. 4 above indicates the very stable ability of eo in reaching the best solution for four study cases. eo found the same solution quality for the 50 runs, which can be seen via the line of fuel cost, meanwhile pso must suffer very high fluctuation among the 50 runs, especially the deviation between the best and the worst runs. the two algorithms were tested by using the same population of 50 and the same iteration of 100. about the structure, eo only use one main equation (11) to update solutions, here they are generation of thermal units. pso has updated velocity and location in which velocity is equivalent to an increased interval and location is solution. the algorithms have the same characteristic of using randomization, but eo almost do not have sensitivity to the randomization. here, the setting of population and iteration are 50 and 100, not having enough impact on the change of eo but they highly influence the fluctuations of pso. as compared to other previous algorithms shown in previous studies, the best performance of eo cannot be shown in terms of reaching less fuel costs than these algorithms. eo only reached smaller cost than several algorithms such as sde, iep, and ardga. other algorithms did not show all simulated results as the study, so the full comparison is impossible to carry out. on the other hand, presentation of settings of iterations and population was not done in the studies too. however, the use of 50 and 100 for population and iteration is not high setting for the algorithm. and the comparison with pso is the evidence for this statement. pso could not reach the best solution although it was run 50 trials. so, eo is a very effective algorithm for this research. in the second case of testing eo performance, the supplied power to load over 24 hours with an additional supply from solar and wind power plants are both employed. the second case is much more complicated than the first case in terms of multiple hours and the presence of renewable energies-based generating units. the uncertainty of wind and solar have not been considered, and this is the major shortcoming of the study. however, the power sources have a high contribution to form a load curve for one day within 24 hours and reduce the fuel cost from thermal units. the fixed power of the renewable energiesbased units can guarantee energy security, i.e., load demand can be satisfied all hours. however, there are other cases that the real power of renewable power plants is smaller than predetermined values. this case is serious for the power system and frequency can be reduced to a smaller value than rated frequency. for this case, thermal units or battery energy storage system (bess) as considered by (kheiter et al., 2022) can supply more power to compensate for the lack of the renewable energies-based units. to reach the purpose, bess must save enough energy for discharge meanwhile the thermal units copes with the challenge of increasing power or starting up shut down units. this unexpected issue should be solved in the future work and the power system will become more effective in the future. besides, the uncertainties and the mathematical models of renewable energy sources, including solar and wind power plants, as considered in (kaur et al., 2021; khamharnphol et al., fig. 9 the most optimal generations of each thermal unit over 24 hours 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 p o w e r o u tp u t (m w ) hour unit 1 unit 2 unit 3 unit 4 unit 5 unit 6 unit 7 unit 8 unit 9 unit 10 h.d.nguyen et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 590-600 |598 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 2022), should be employed while solving the meld problem as another complex constraint for assessing the efficiency of a modern meta-heuristic algorithm such as eo. this implementation is also a great method to improve the overall quality of the study and make it closer to practice, where the penetration rate of these sources is growing. 5. conclusion in this study, one conventional ten-thermal unit power system and one integrated ten-thermal unit, three-solar photovoltaic plant and one wind-plant power systems are successfully solved by conventional meta-heuristic algorithm, named particle swarm optimization and a modern one, named equilibrium optimizer. the evaluation of results about the minimum and maximum total electricity generating cost values indicated that eo is completely superior to pso. specifically, eo provides a quick response capability, lower fluctuations of fitness values for fifty independent runs, and fast convergence to optimal results. therefore, eo has been acknowledged as a highly effective method for solving meld problems. in the future, the meld should be expanded with the consideration of higher-degree complicated constraints such as prohibited operation zone, valve point effects and uncertainties of renewable. in addition to highly valuable contributions above, this study also copes with the following shortcomings: ➢ other constraints of thermal generating units are still not evaluated on this study such as valve point effects, ramp-rate limits, prohibited zones, etc. ➢ the study only considers the case that both wind and solar power plants generate enough power to meet the demand as predicted. for other cases with a mismatch between the power generated by wind and solar power plants and the load demand, the evaluation in these cases is not taken place. as a result, no actions are proposed to deal with these scenarios while power from wind and solar power plants is lower or higher than load demand. ➢ the uncertainties of the wind and solar power plants is not clearly discussed and evaluated strictly. by fully acknowledging the shortcomings, there are many improvements that must be conducted in the future. ➢ more high-complex constraints related to meld must be taken into account. ➢ the uncertainties of power generated by wind and solar power plants must be fully evaluated while solving meld. ➢ more scenarios of power system operation must be employed and analyzed. especially, as there is a mismatch between the forecast and the real power production from wind and solar power plants. consequences as well as solutions for the cases have to be calculated and proposed to reach the least impact. nomenclature g the number of thermal generators 𝑔, 𝛿𝑔, and 𝛾𝑔 the fuel coefficients pgg the power output of thermal generator g (mw) 𝑃𝐷 the power demand required by the load (mw) 𝑃𝐿 the total power loss of the transmission process (mw) ∑ 𝑃𝑔 𝐺 𝑔=1 the total power generated by all thermal generators (mw) 𝑃𝑊 and 𝑃𝑆 the power supplied by wind and solar generators (mw) bgh, b0g, and b00 the loss factors pgg and pgh the power injected by the generators g and h (mw) 𝑃𝐺𝑔,𝑚𝑖𝑛 and 𝑃𝐺𝑔,𝑚𝑎𝑥 the working limitations of generator g (mw) ∑ 𝑃𝑆𝐺,𝑞 𝑁𝑆 𝑞 the total power generated by all solar power plants (mw) 𝑃𝑆𝐺,𝑞(mw) active power generated by solar power plant q (mw) 𝑃𝑆𝐺,𝑞 𝑚𝑖𝑛 and 𝑃𝑆𝐺,𝑞 𝑚𝑎𝑥 the minimum and maximum power generated by solar generator q (mw) np the population number 𝑉𝑖 𝑛𝑒𝑤 and 𝑃𝑖 𝑛𝑒𝑤 the new velocity and new position of the individual i. 𝑉𝑖 and 𝑃𝑖 the current velocity and current position of individual i qc1 and cq2 the accelerating factors 𝛾1 and 𝛾2 the random numbers in the interval between 0 and 1 𝑃𝐵𝑒𝑠𝑡,𝑖 and 𝑃𝐺𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡,𝑖 the best position at the time considered and the best position at all times of the individual i. vr a random value in the range of (0, 1) 𝑟𝑑3 and 𝑟𝑑4 the random values in the interval between 0 and 1 𝑐𝑓 the comparative factor acknowledgments we acknowledge ho chi minh city university of technology (hcmut), vnu-hcm for supporting this study. author contributions: h.d.n.: methodology, formal analysis, writing—original draft, k.h.t.; supervision, resources, project administration, n.a.l.; conceptualization, writing—review and editing, project administration, validation. all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. funding: this research was funded by ho chi minh city university of technology (hcmut), vnu-hcm. conflicts of interest: authors declare no conflict of interest. references al-betar, m.a., awadallah, m.a. & krishan, m.m. 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(2017). gradient decent based multi-objective cultural differential evolution for short-term hydrothermal optimal scheduling of economic emission with integrating wind power and photovoltaic power. energy, 122, 748– 766. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.01.083. © 2023. the author(s). this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution-sharealike 4.0 (cc by-sa) international license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00202-019-00792-y https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2013.07.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2021.120267 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2020.117014 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2018.05.180 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2020.106579 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2020.106240 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.01.083 international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023, 12 (3), 74-759 | 749 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49165 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id demand response based microgrid's economic dispatch muhammad hammad saeeda* , md sohel ranaa, md kausaraahmedb, claude ziad el-bayehc , wang fangzonga acollege of electrical engineering and new energy (ceene), china three gorges university (ctgu), yichang, china bcollege of electrical engineering and information, southwest petroleum university (swpu), chengdu, china cdepartment of electrical engineering, bayeh institute, amchit, lebanon abstract. the development of energy management tools for next-generation distributed energy resources (der) based power plants, such as photovoltaic, energy storage units, and wind, helps power systems be more flexible. microgrids are entities that coordinate ders in a persistently more decentralized fashion, hence decreasing the operational burden on the main grid and permitting them to give their full benefits. a new power framework has emerged due to the integration of ders-based microgrids into the conventional power system. with the rapid advancement of microgrid technology, more emphasis has been placed on maintaining the microgrids' long-term economic feasibility while ensuring security and stability. the objective of this research is to provide a multi-objective economic operation technique for microgrids containing air-conditioning clusters (acc) taking demand response into account. a dynamic price mechanism is proposed, accurately reflecting the system's actual operational status. for economic dispatch, flexible loads and air conditioners are considered demand response resources. then, a consumer-profit model and an ac operating cost model are developed, with a set of pragmatic constraints of consumer comfort. the generation model is then designed to reduce the generation cost. finally, a microgrid simulation platform is developed in matlab/simulink, and a case is designed to evaluate the proposed method's performance. the findings show that consumer profit increases by 69.2% while acc operational costs decrease by 18.2%. moreover, generation costs are reduced without sacrificing customer satisfaction. keywords: air-conditioning cluster (acc), demand response (dr), distributed generation (dg), economic operation, microgas turbine (mgt), microgrid (mg) @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 24th sept 2022; revised: 16th april 2023; accepted: 20th june 2023; available online: 30th june 2023 1. introduction microgrids are an integral part of today's smart grid. microgrids serve as an effective interface for distributed generators (dg), loads, energy storage systems (ess), and control units while sustaining dg's cost-effectiveness, environmental protection, and flexibility. they supply high-quality power to ensure that consumers' power usage is safe and reliable. the microgrid operation mode, on the other hand, is extremely adaptable (saeed et al., 2021a). for operation, mgs can be incorporated into a large power grid. they can also operate independently of the electric grid in autonomous/islanded mode. the remote islanded mgs operate in the event of a power grid breakdown to ensure the power supply of important loads (mhankale & thorat, 2018; liu et al., 2021; dashtdar et al. 2022; saeed et al, 2022). economy, reliability, and energy-saving are three characteristics that must be considered in the operation of islanded-operated microgrid systems (saeed et al., 2021b; recalde et al., 2020; xu et al., 2020; pothireddy et al., 2022). with the continuous development of microgrid control technologies, mgs have achieved safe and stable operation, and their reliability has been greatly guaranteed (saeed et al., 2022; salkuti 2022). therefore, researchers are paying more attention to the economics of mg operation (battula et al. 2021; wang et al. 2010). * corresponding author email: m.saeed003@outlook.com (m.h.saeed) the two types of economic power system dispatch are static dispatch and dynamic dispatch (ross et al., 1980; han, 2001; attaviriyanupap, 2002; basu, 2008). based on the system's operational conditions during each independent period, static economic dispatch determines the equipment's priority and mode of operation. the dynamic economic dispatch takes into account the scheduling cycle's lowest cost and coordinates across the various distribution generations (dgs) throughout several periods , so it is better adapted to the needs of a system in actual operation. researching the dynamic economic dispatch is therefore crucial. it is challenging to resolve the dynamic economic dispatch problem with renewable energy sources because they are prone to randomness and disruptions (calderaro et al., 2014). hsiao et al. (2021) developed an mg energy optimization approach that combined reliability and economy to realize the dynamic economic operation. salkuti et al. (2015), and salkuti (2017) presented a novel multi-objective day-ahead market clearing (damc) process that incorporates demand response offers while taking into account an extensive voltage-dependent load model. salkuti et al. (2016) also suggested a dynamic reserve activation strategy that is most effective in case of a line outage, a load rise, or both. he considered the spinning reserves provided by traditional thermal generators, hydropower units, research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49165 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49165 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49165 mailto:m.saeed003@outlook.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2547-5016 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8268-8878 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9441-5148 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.49165&domain=pdf m.h saeed et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4),749-759 |750 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore and load demands. salkuti (2018) developed an optimum emergency strategy utilizing the coordinated activity of slow and rapid reserves for the safe functioning of the power system at the least expensive and proved that the dynamic emergency reserve activation strategy has an advantage over the sequential reserve activation approach. murty & kumar (2020) developed a mathematical model for the economics of an mg consisting of a combined heat and power (chp) system that took environmental conditions into account. the simulation results show that scheduling batteries optimally can lower the system's overall running cost. however, it does not consider the reliability of the islanded operation of the system. as multi-objective optimization targets, ma et al. (2015) examines three indicators of active power loss, pollutant gas emissions, and system voltage stability. through modeling and analysis, it provides ideas for the monitoring and operation of smart grids. as a relatively cheap economic dispatch resource, demand response not only expands the mg's economic dispatch capabilities but also benefits the demand response users (vardakas et al., 2015), (rajkumar et al., 2011), (chen et al., 2011), (wang et al., 2020), and (pourbabak et al., 2018). jindal et al. (2018) proposed a novel analysis and management scheme that considers equipment adjustment variables, electrical priority indicators, and electrical product priority, as well as several algorithms for dr decision-making. ali et al. (2022) established price-based demand response models, including wind power, diesel engines, and energy storage systems to solve the optimal operating strategy through multi-objective wind driven optimization (mowdo), and verified the method's effectiveness through real-time simulations. to maximize the microgrid’s total profit, nguyen et al. (2018) proposed a novel smart grid pricing plan based on a demand response model including time-varying loads and finally used the alternating direction method of multipliers to solve the optimization problem analytically. hao et al. (2021) proposed a new chaotic binary gravitational search algorithm (ibgsa) for an islanded microgrid. the results show that implementing the demand response strategy in the optimal allocation process can effectively alleviate the systems’ investment cost, maintain the power supply’s reliability, and aggravate the renewable energy consumption. john et al. (2008) designed a framework for incorporating wind energy systems in the economic dispatch problem considering the overestimation and underestimation of the available power and numerically solved the optimization problem using the stochastic wind speed characterization based on the weibull probability density function. wu et al. (2014) built a chp microgrid system with various distributed energy resources and used the maximum comprehensive benefits as the objective function for dynamic economic dispatch. the objective function is solved using an improved particle swarm optimization (pso) technique paired with monte carlo simulation. zachar & daoutidis (2016) employed economic model predictive control to keep costs down while still achieving the constraints. the suggested dispatch approach can successfully reject forecasting errors and satisfy the defined energy exchange and storage level goals. imtiaz et al. (2021) implemented an incentive-based demand response model in a grid-connected microgrid and solved the economic dispatch problem with the dragonfly algorithm (da). the objective of the proposed method is to achieve the lowest fuel cost, the lowest transferable power cost, and the highest demand response benefit for the microgrid operator. the findings of da are compared to those of other modern algorithms such as the crow-search algorithm, the ant-lion optimizer, particle swarm optimization, and the genetic algorithm. in practice, a microgrid contains a variety of dg types. the dgs will exhibit various aspects in the dynamic economic dispatch when operating in various modes and according to various scheduling schemes. unpredictability and discontinuities will make the economic dispatch more challenging (kumar et al., 2019). this research suggests a dynamic electricity price mechanism based on the real-time electricity price mechanism that can more accurately reflect the operating status of the system for mgs with significant renewable energy penetration. 2. dynamic electricity price mechanism supply and demand must always be matched in power systems (ulbig et al., 2014). dynamic electricity tariffs are commonly mentioned as instruments for demand-side management to ensure this grid stability (dutta and mitra, 2017). the adoption of real-time pricing tariffs is attributed to a rise in overall economic efficiency because dynamic prices per unit of electricity reflect their short-run societal marginal costs of provision better than constant prices per unit of electricity do (borenstein, 2005). usually, the time-sharing tariff strategy is exploited to adjust the consumer's electricity consumption behavior according to the pre-set price. however, this strategy does not reflect the changes in the system's operating environment for real-time operation, particularly in the autonomous mgs having a high penetration rate of renewable energy resources. the presence of a large number of ders makes the operating environment of the autonomous mg greatly affected by the ambient and complex. the island's changing environment also reduces the accuracy of the time-sharing power price mechanism period. therefore, a dynamic electricity price mechanism which reflects the real-time operational status of the system can address the user's electricity consumption behavior more effectively. the real-time update of dynamic electricity price affects the access volume of user-side adjustable load, and the plausible dynamic tariff mechanism can promote demand-side response and maximize user-side revenue. electricity price is determined by the average marginal cost of system operation, while renewable energy resources and micro-gas turbines mainly provide the power in a microgrid. so, the dynamic electricity price mechanism consists of base electricity price, renewable energy power price adjustment, and micro gas-turbine power price adjustment. the base price is fixed and is the basis for forming the dynamic electricity price. the electricity price adjustment of renewable energy generation units is related to the actual power production by rers. the adjustment of the electricity price of the micro-gas turbine is related to the power produced by the micro-gas turbine. when the amount of renewable energy generation increases, the dynamic electricity price should be reduced, and the user side should be guided to increase the access volume of adjustable load to promote electricity consumption. therefore, dynamic electricity prices are negatively correlated with renewable energy power. the cost of generation of the micro-gas turbine increases with the increase of its generated power, which eventually increases the average operating cost of the microgrid. at this stage, to alleviate the burden on the generation-side of the microgrid, dynamic electricity prices should be increased to guide users to reduce the access volume of adjustable load. therefore, m.h saeed et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4),749-759 |751 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore dynamic electricity price is positively correlated with micro-gas turbine force. to sum up, defining dynamic tariffs is as follows: 𝑐𝑑 (𝑡) = 𝑐𝑏 − 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑔 (𝑡) + 𝑐𝑚𝑡 (𝑡) (1) where, 𝑐𝑑 (𝑡) represents the dynamic electricity price for the tperiod, 𝑐𝑏 represents the base price of electricity, 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑔 (𝑡) represents the amount of electricity price adjustment for renewable energy generation in the t-period, 𝑐𝑚𝑡 (𝑡) represents the amount of electricity price adjustment for micro-gas turbine power generation during the t-period. 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑔 (𝑡) is determined by the total amount of renewable energy power generation collected by the system during t−1 period, and the total amount of power generation by the microgrid is given by the following formula: 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑔 (𝑡) = 𝑘𝑟𝑒𝑔 . ∑𝑝 𝑖 𝑟𝑒𝑔 (𝑡−1) ∑𝑝 𝑖 𝑟𝑒𝑔 (𝑡−1)+𝑝𝑖 𝑚𝑡(𝑡−1) (2) here, 𝑘𝑟𝑒𝑔 represents the electricity price adjustment factor for renewable energy generation, 𝑝𝑖 𝑟𝑒𝑔 (𝑡 − 1) represents the power output of the ith rer in the time t−1. 𝑝𝑖 𝑚𝑡 (𝑡 − 1) denotes the power output of the ith micro gas turbine during period t−1. it can be seen from equations (1) and (2) that when the mgt’s output remains unchanged with an increase of renewable energy generation, the amount of electricity price adjustment for renewable energy generation increases. and the dynamic price reduction encourages users to connect more adjustable loads to promote electric energy consumption. from equation (12), it can be obtained that the cost of generation of the mgt becomes a convex quadratic function of its output. the increase in the cost of generation from mgts will increase dynamic electricity prices. so, the exact definition of the electricity price adjustment coefficient of the mgt power generation as the second convex function of its output is shown in the following formula: 𝑐𝑚𝑡 (𝑡) = 𝑎. (∑pi 𝑚𝑡 (𝑡 − 1))2 + 𝑏. (∑pmt 𝑖 (𝑡 − 1)) (3) where a and b represent the electricity price adjustment coefficient of the mgt respectively. when the renewable energy power generation remains unchanged with the increase in output of the mgt, the electricity price adjustment amount of the mgt’s generated power increases and can be calculated by equation (2). the amount of electricity price adjustment for renewable energy power generation will reduce, so the dynamic electricity price will rise, limiting adjustable load access. based on the renewable energy generation and micro-gas turbine power generation in the previous period, the system determines the dynamic tariff to be executed in the next period and updates the dynamic electricity price before the following time period. 3. the multi-objective demand response model the conventional microgrid economic optimization model focuses on the microgrid power generation side or demand side and neglects the user's comfort. in the future, microgrid development needs to optimize the power generation side and demand side as a whole to improve the economy and reliability of microgrid operation. therefore, based on the proposed dynamic electricity price mechanism, this section establishes a multi-objective economic operation model that integrates the generationside and demand-side of the mg. for optimal demand side scheduling, the communities for adjustable loads and air conditioning are used as demand response resources. to maximize user benefits and reduce acc operating costs while maintaining user comfort, the airconditioning cluster's (acc) operating cost and adjustable user benefit model were developed. to ensure that the cost of power generation is kept to a minimum while the microgrid is in operation, a cost model for power generation has been devised. 3.1. user-side revenue model the revenue function on the user side consists of a utility function and a cost function. the utility function represents the relationship between the size of the power consumption of the load and the benefits generated. the parameters σi and ωi are introduced to describe the utility of different adjustable loads. the electricity utility of load i can be expressed as follows: 𝑈𝑖 (𝑡) = { 𝜎𝑖 𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 (𝑡) + 𝜔𝑖 2 (𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 (𝑡)) 2 , 0 < 𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 (𝑡) < − 𝜎𝑖 𝜔𝑖 𝜎𝑖 2 2𝜔𝑖 , 𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 (𝑡) ≥ − 𝜎𝑖 𝜔𝑖 (4) thereinto σi,ω𝑖 represent the parameters of adjustable load i, satisfying ω𝑖 > 0,σi > 0, determined by the type of load. 𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 represents the adjustable load i during the time-period t, 𝑈𝑖 (𝑡) represents the electrical utility of adjustable load k, at 𝑙𝑖 < σi < ω𝑖 time. 𝑈𝑖 (𝑡) is directly proportional to the access amount 𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 of the adjustable load i. when 𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 ≥ σiω𝑖 , even if the adjustable load connection amount 𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 continues to increase, the electricity utility 𝑈𝑖 (𝑡) of the adjustable load remains unchanged. the cost function represents the user's electricity bill, following the user's specific usage trends. the cost of electricity for adjustable loads can be expressed as follows: 𝐹𝑖 (𝑡) = 𝑐𝑑 (𝑡) − 𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 (𝑡) (5) here, 𝐹𝑖 (𝑡) represents the cost of electricity for adjustable load i. the combined utility function and the cost function can be represented by the user-side revenue function as follows: 𝑃 = ∑ui(𝑡) − ∑fi(𝑡) (6) when the dynamic tariff increases, the utility of adjustable load will remain unchanged, and the cost of electricity will increase. this results in lower revenue on the user side, so the adjustable load will be reduced to ensure maximum benefit on the user side. when the dynamic tariff is reduced, access to adjustable load will increase due to the reduction of electricity charges to obtain more significant revenue on the user side. 3.2. air conditioning operating cost model airconditioning has periodic operating characteristics. the indoor temperature fluctuates up and down between user-set temperature ranges. when the air conditioning in cooling mode is on and running, the lower-temperature limit tdown is reached in the room. when the air conditioner stops working, the room temperature continues to rise. the air conditioner starts running again with the room temperature reaching the uppertemperature limit tup. the thermal power process of the air conditioner can be simulated by the equivalent thermal parameter model (etp), and the expression for the room temperature is as follows: m.h saeed et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4),749-759 |752 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore { 𝑇𝑖 𝑡+1 = 𝑇0 𝑡 − (𝑇0 𝑡 − 𝑇𝑖 𝑡 )𝑒 − δt rc , 𝑆 = 0 𝑇𝑖 𝑡+1 = 𝑇0 𝑡 − ηpr − (𝑇0 𝑡 − ηpr − 𝑇𝑖 𝑡 )𝑒 − δt rc , 𝑆 = 1 (7) in the above expression, 𝑇𝑖 𝑡+1 and 𝑇𝑖 𝑡 represent t+1 and tmoment room temperature, respectively. 𝑇0 𝑡 represents the ambient temperature at the t-moment. p indicates the cooling/ thermal power (kw) when the air conditioner is operating, η represents the energy efficiency ratio of the air conditioner, c is the equivalent thermal capacity (j/c), r is the equivalent thermal resistance (c/w), δt represents the interval (s). 𝑆 indicates the operating status of the air conditioner, 𝑆 =0 indicates that the air conditioner is out of service, 𝑆 = 1 indicates that the air conditioner is in operation. the operating cost function of air conditioning consists of its electricity cost function and maintenance cost function. the electricity cost function is used to describe the power cost consumed when air conditioning is in operation, which can be expressed as follows: 𝑁𝑖 (𝑡) = 𝑐𝑑 (𝑡). 𝑝𝑖 𝐴𝐶 (𝑡) (8) thereinto 𝑝𝑖 𝐴𝐶 (𝑡) indicates the cooling/ thermal power of the ith air conditioner, 𝑁𝑖 (𝑡) represents its corresponding cost of electricity. the maintenance cost function of the air conditioner is used to describe the depreciation and maintenance costs generated by the operation of the air conditioner. considering the differences between different air conditioners, the maintenance cost can be defined as the quadratic convex function of the power of the air conditioner. it is expressed as follows: 𝑀𝑖 (𝑡) = 𝑚. (𝑝𝑖 𝐴𝐶 (𝑡)) 2 + 𝑛. 𝑝𝑖 𝐴𝐶 (𝑡) + 𝑙 (9) in above equation, m, n, and l are the maintenance cost factors for air conditioning, respectively. 𝑀𝑖 (𝑡) represents the maintenance cost of the air conditioner. the function of electricity cost and maintenance cost of integrated air conditioning can be obtained as follows: 𝑊(𝑡) = ∑ni(𝑡) + ∑mi(𝑡) (10) at the same time, influencing factors of electricity price are introduced into the comfort constraints of users so that the air conditioners’ set temperature is affected by the two factors of electricity price and user comfort. the set temperature can be formulated as: 𝑇𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑡+1 = 𝑇𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑡 + 𝐶1. 𝑐𝑑 −𝑐𝑑 𝑚𝑖𝑛 𝑐𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑥−𝑐𝑑 𝑚𝑖𝑛 + 𝐶2. 𝑇𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑡 −𝑇𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑜𝑟𝑖 𝑇𝑢𝑝−𝑇𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 (11) in the above expression, 𝑇𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑡+1 and 𝑇𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑡 represent the air conditioning set temperature at t+1 and t-moment, respectively. 𝐶1 and 𝐶2 are the influence coefficients of electricity price and user comfort on the set temperature of air-conditioning. 𝑐𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑥 and 𝑐𝑑 𝑚𝑖𝑛 are the maximum and minimum value of the electricity price, and tup and tdown are the upper and lower limits of the user's set temperature, 𝑇𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑜𝑟𝑖 represents the initial set temperature of the air conditioner. the dynamic electricity price increases is directly proportional to the operating cost of air conditioning. at this time, the air conditioning temperature increases and reduces the operating time of air conditioning to save electricity costs. when the set temperature of air conditioning increases to a particular value, by the user's comfort limit, the setting temperature of air conditioning is reduced to ensure the user's comfort. 3.3. generation side cost model in the microgrids operating in an isolated mode, the cost of electricity generation from renewable sources is generally ignored, and only the generation cost from micro-gas turbines is considered. the generation cost is usually defined as the quadratic convex function of power output for conventional micro-gas turbines as (boyd et al., 2012): 𝐶𝑖 = αi(𝑝𝑖 𝑚𝑡 )2 + βi𝑝𝑖 𝑚𝑡 + γi (12) thereinto αi, βi, γi are i th mgt’s cost parameters, and meet αi > 0, βi > 0, γi > 0. 𝑝𝑖 𝑚𝑡 represents the active output of the micro-gas turbine i, 𝐶𝑖 represents the cost of generation for i th mgt. the objective function of the microgrid generation side can be expressed as follows: min 𝐶 = ∑ 𝐶𝑖 (𝑝𝑖 𝑚𝑡 )𝑛𝑖=1 (13) the incremental cost λi of micro-gas turbines is defined as the 1st derivative of its generating cost electricity ci w.r.t. active output pi, represented as follows (wood et al., 2013): λi = ∂ci(pi mt) ∂pi mt = 2αipi mt + βi (14) according to the criterion of equal small increase rate, when the incremental cost of all mgts is the same, the optimal output of each mgt is obtained. at this time, the cost of generation of the mg is the smallest. 4. constraints equality and inequality constraints are introduced to ensure the reliable operation of the mg. equality constraints ensure the power balance between the generation side and the consumption side of the microgrid during operation, which is a prerequisite for the stable operation of the mg. inequality constraints consider the output limit of micro-gas turbines in microgrids and the access limit of adjustable load. 4.1. power balance constraint for an mg, the total output of power generation from rers, esd, and mgts should be balanced with the total load on the user side, which can be expressed as follows: ∑pi mt(t) + ∑p i reg (t) + pess(t) = ∑li fl(t) + ∑li cl(t) + ∑pi ac(t) (15) here, pi reg (t) represents the output power of the ith rer unit at the t-moment, pess(t) represents the output of the esd at tmoment. 4.2. mgt’s output constraint the output of the mgt is limited by its rated capacity and other physical conditions. to ensure an adequate output of the mgt during the optimization process, the constraints are set as follows: min(pi mt) ≤ pi mt(t) ≤ max(pi mt) (16) here, min(pi mt) and max(pi mt) represent the minimum and maximum output of the ith mgt. m.h saeed et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4),749-759 |753 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 4.3. adjustable load constraint the access volume of the adjustable load is adjusted with the change of the dynamic tariff to maximize the user-side revenue. due to the limitation of the physical conditions of the adjustable load, the access volume is restricted as follows: min(li fl) ≤ li fl(t) ≤ max(li fl) (17) hereinto 𝑚𝑖𝑛(𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 ) and 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑙𝑖 𝑓𝑙 ) represent the minimum and maximum access volumes of the ith adjustable load. 4.4. user comfort constraints the indoor temperature should be maintained within the user's comfort level. when the indoor temperature exceeds the uppertemperature limit, the air conditioner starts working to reduce the room temperature. when the indoor temperature is less than the lower temperature limit, the air conditioner stops working. when the indoor temperature is within the comfort zone, the air conditioner stops working or keeps working according to the control command. at the same time, influencing factors of electricity price are introduced into the comfort constraints of users so that the set temperature of the air conditioner is affected by the two factors of electricity price and user comfort. the set temperature of the air conditioner can be expressed as follows: tdown < ti(t) < tup (18) in the formula, tup and tdown represent the upper and lower temperature limit set by the user. the upper limit is 2 degrees higher than the user set temperature, and the corresponding lower limit is 2 degrees lower than the user set temperature. 5. simulation model a radial mg operating in islanded mode is established in matlab/simulink to verify the effectiveness of the proposed multi-objective economic dispatch method. the microgrid simulation model consists of 12 distributed power generation units and 12 loads, and its topology is shown in figure 1. the distributed power generation units include micro gas turbines {dgi| i=1,3,5,7,11}, renewable energy generation units {dgi| i=2,6,8,9,10,12} and energy storage systems dg4. there are three types, namely fixed loads {loadi| i=4,8,10,12} adjustable load {loadi| i=1,3,5,11} and acc load {aci| i=2,5,6,9}. renewable energy power generation units, including photovoltaics and wind turbines, are considered to work in maximum power point tracking (mppt) mode. considering fig 1. the topology of microgrid simulation platform https://www.hanspub.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=35174#f1 m.h saeed et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4),749-759 |754 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore that this paper studies the dynamic economic dispatch of microgrids, the renewable energy power generation units are set not to generate reactive power. in the simulation process, the output curve of the renewable energy power generation unit is shown in fig. 2. the micro gas turbine works in the pq control mode to compensate for the power gap between renewable energy generation units and the load. since the islanded microgrid lacks the support of the main grid, the energy storage system works in the v/f mode as the voltage and frequency support of the microgrid. taking into account the energy storage system’s capacity and output power limitations, a micro gas turbine is set to share the energy storage output. so, the energy storage system only supplies power when the load changes suddenly, and then its output power is shared by the micro gas turbine. resultantly, the overcharge and discharge of the energy storage system are avoided, and the safe and stable operation of the microgrid is ensured. the air-conditioning load in the microgrid is assumed to be inverter air-conditioning with a maximum rating of 3 kw. in addition, the air conditioners in each area are centrally controlled by the corresponding central controller, and the indoor temperature in the same area remains the same. the specific parameters of air conditioning load are shown in table 1. the related parameters of distributed generation units (dg) and loads in the microgrid are listed in table 2 and table 3, respectively. the line losses are introduced in the system to make a real-time simulation model for the microgrid. the line impedance is set to 0.641 + j0.101 ω/km, and the system voltage and frequency are set to 380 v and 50 hz, respectively. fig 2. outputs of renewable energy generation units table 1 setups and parameters of ac serial # no. of ac units initial temperature (0c) 𝒎 𝒏 𝒍 2 15 24 -0.328 3.42 0.80 6 12 24.5 -0.174 2.86 0.83 7 8 23 -0.360 2.32 1.00 9 10 25 -0.198 2.99 1.50 table 2 dg parameters serial # active/ reactive ratings (kw, kvar) mode 𝜶 𝜷 𝜸 1 60, 40 pq 0.059 6.71 80 2 30, 0 mppt 3 55, 42 pq 0.066 6.29 43 4 30 ah v/f 5 65, 50 pq 0.046 7.53 35 6 50, 0 mppt 7 60, 48 pq 0.069 4.57 48 8 35, 0 mppt 9 45, 0 mppt 10 50, 0 mppt 11 60, 45 pq 0.058 0.058 54 12 55, 0 mppt m.h saeed et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4),749-759 |755 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 6. model’s solution based on the specifications of the microgrid simulation model, the matlab function module in the user-defined functions library is added to simulink. then user benefit model, airconditioning operating cost model, and power generation cost model are established in the module. the centralized interiorpoint optimization function 'fmincon' is called to solve the model; a function minimizer with linear and nonlinear constraints. the specific steps are as follows: a) read the current operational time of each micro gas turbine, energy storage system output, adjustable load, acc power, indoor temperature, ambient temperature, and dynamic electricity price. b) based on the current dynamic electricity price, the centralized optimization function 'fmincon' solves the user side revenue model and the air-conditioning operating cost model. and the optimal connection plan of the adjustable load and the optimal operating power of the acc is obtained. c) the output of the v/f controlledenergy storage system is allocated to the micro gas turbine to avoid overcharge and discharge of the energy storage system to ensure the microgrid's stable operation. d) the total output of micro gas turbines is updated. the centralized optimization function 'fmincon' is called to solve the power generation cost model to ensure that all micro gas turbines have incremental costs and minimize power generation costs. e) the adjustable loads, the operating power of the acc, and the output power of the micro gas turbine are updated and the arrival of the following optimization period is entertained in the same way. 7. results & discussion a simulation study is designed for the microgrid simulation model to verify the validity of the proposed multi-objective economic scheduling model. the simulation duration is 6 hours. the operation and economic benefits of the microgrid under normal conditions and multi-time economic dispatch strategy are compared and analyzed, and the simulation results under different strategies are shown in the following figures. comparing the dynamic electricity price and the change of adjustable load in fig. 3 (a) and (b), it can be seen that when the dynamic price increases, the amount of variable load access decreases and the cost of electricity for adjustable load decreases. while the cost of the adjustable load has decreased, fewer devices modify their consumption in response to price table 3 load parameters serial # load type load range (kw) 𝝎 𝝈 1 adjustable 036 -0.123 9.625 2 acc 045 3 adjustable 048 -0.163 13.02 4 fixed 30 5 adjustable 024 6 acc 036 -0.198 13.12 7 acc 0-24 8 fixed 30 9 acc 0-30 -0.207 10.99 10 fixed 35 11 adjustable 0-28 12 fixed 40 (a) (b) fig. 3 (a) connected amount of flexible loads (b) the incremental cost of mts and the dynamic price https://www.hanspub.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=35174#f3 m.h saeed et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4),749-759 |756 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore signals. this is due to the ability of users to move their electricity usage to cheaper times of the day. when demand is strong or the supply is constrained, both impacts result in a more balanced and effective use of electricity. when the dynamic electricity price decreases, the amount of adjustable load access increases. although the adjustable load electricity cost increases, the utility of the adjustable power load increases more than the cost of electricity, so the total income of the users increases. the expansion of adjustable load access enables consumers to switch their consumption to cheaper times of the day (julia & victor 2022, maximilian 2022). . the increased utility gained by using power during cheaper times leads to an overall rise in total income or benefit for users, notwithstanding the possibility of an increase in the cost of electricity for adjustable loads. fig. 3(b) shows the incremental cost curve of micro-gas turbines, which shows that the incremental costs of micro-gas turbines are consistent throughout the simulation period for all the values of 𝛌, thus minimizing the total cost of power generation on the power generation side of the microgrid. the reason is that they may modify their power output while a demand response program is active based on the grid's requirements and pricing cues. the turbines can continue to operate steadily and efficiently during the simulation time because these modifications often take place within a narrow range. in fig. 3(b), the dynamic cost decreases drastically after 4 hr due to rise in incremental cost of micro-turbine, and then increases gradually after 7 hrs with the decline in the incremental cost of micro-turbine. fig. 4 (a) and (b) show the user room temperature variation and acc power variation with and without introducing the proposed method. it is clear that under the proposed method, the power consumption of the acc is lower than that without the introduction of the proposed method with the constraints of user comfort. the increased temperature variation is caused by equipmentcycling, in which the cooling or heating system frequently switches from on to off operation. during times of peak demand, this cycle can be employed to reduce overall electricity use. as the system alternates between times of active cooling or heating and periods of inactivity, it can also result in temperature changes within the space. there are two reasons behind the decreased acc power variation: • setpoint adjustments: in order to balance the grid's demand for electricity, the dr program requires consumers to change the setpoints on their thermostats or permit a wider range of temperatures. users may need to tolerate slightly higher room temperatures than their preferred comfort levels. the units may cycle on and off more frequently to maintain the greater temperature range as a result of these setpoint alterations, which might lead to increased power variances within the air conditioning cluster (david et al. 2015).. • consumer response heterogeneity: users' reactions to dr signals can differ, resulting in various power fluctuation patterns within the acc. while some users may have more variable usage patterns, others may be more receptive to price signals or demands for demand reduction, leading to higher power variations. this fluctuation in user responses may be a factor in the cluster's higher power variability(waseem et al. 2021).. figure 5 shows the voltage and frequency of the microgrid system and the output of the energy storage system. it is clear from the figure that under the proposed economic dispatch strategy, the voltage and frequency of the system remain stable. for a microgrid's safe and reliable operation, certain voltage limitations must be maintained. the proposed economic dispatch method takes these restrictions into account and allocates generation resources to keep voltage levels within reasonable bounds. the economic dispatch approach contributes to system stability by sticking to these voltage constraints and avoiding voltage instability or voltage collapse. only when the load changes suddenly, there will be small fluctuations, but it will return to normal soon. the economic dispatch strategy aims to balance the generation and load within the power system. by optimizing the allocation of generation resources, it ensures that the total power supplied matches the total power demanded in real-time. this balance helps maintain a stable frequency as the generation and load fluctuations are minimized. dynamic response capabilities allow energy storage systems to respond quickly to changes in load or generation, helping to regulate frequency and voltage within the microgrid. the energy storage system only outputs or absorbs power to maintain the power balance of the microgrid system when the load changes suddenly. but the output is quickly shared by the micro gas turbine and returns to zero, thus avoiding the overcharge and discharge of the energy (a) (b) fig. 4 (a) the room temperature (b) the power of ac m.h saeed et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4),749-759 |757 issn: 2252-4940/©2023. the author(s). published by cbiore storage system to ensure the safety and stability of the microgrid operation fig. 6 compares the benefits of adjustable load users and the operating costs of air-conditioning communities. it can be seen from the figure that the introduction of the demand response economic dispatch method reduces the operating cost of acc. it can be seen from table 4 that the adjustable user benefit of introducing the demand response economic dispatch method is 69.2% higher than the benefit of the user when it is not introduced, and the operating cost of the acc is reduced by 18.2%. the reason is that the proposed method enables load shifting, where the air conditioning cluster can adjust its cooling operation to shift the peak demand to lower-demand periods. by reducing or limiting cooling during peak hours, when electricity prices are typically higher, the cluster can avoid costly peak demand charges and achieve cost savings. fig. 6 the profit of consumers and operation cost of ac table 4 user benefits and air conditioning operating costs scheduling method user benefit (cents) acoperating cost (cents) dr 3,126 1,459 without dr 1,848 1,785 8. conclusion the problem is the current time-of-use electricity price mechanism cannot reflect the real-time status of the microgrid system. so, this paper proposes a dynamic electricity price mechanism that can better reflect the operating status of the microgrid under a high rate of renewable energy penetration. then, air conditioners and adjustable loads are considered as demand response resources to participate in the economic dispatch of the microgrid. the income function of the adjustable load user and the operating cost function of the air conditioner are established, and a series of constraints such as user comfort is considered. according to the criterion of equal small increase rate, the output distribution model of the micro gas turbine is established to minimize the cost of the power generation side of the microgrid. finally, a microgrid simulation model is built in matlab/simulink to verify the proposed multi-objective demand response economic dispatch method. from the simulation results, it can be concluded that under the multiobjective economic dispatch method, the benefit of adjustable users has increased by 69.2%, and the operating cost of the airconditioning cluster has been reduced by 18.2% ensuring user comfort. at the same time, the output of the micro gas turbine is distributed through the equal micro-increase rate criterion to minimize the power generation cost of the 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(2016). economic dispatch for microgrids with constrained external power exchange. ifac-papersonline, 49(7), 833-838; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2016.07.293 © 2023. the author(s). this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution-sharealike 4.0 (cc by-sa) international license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2014.06.002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2020.11.261 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2016.07.293 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023, 12(4), 767-778 | 767 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.54056 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id assessment of the technical-economic performance and optimization of a parabolic trough solar power plant under algerian climatic conditions khaled bouchareba,b* , nabila ihaddadenea,c, khellaf belkhiria,b , khaoula ikhlefd , aissa boudilmia adepartment of mechanical engineering, med boudiaf university, bp 166, m’sila 28000, algeria. blaboratory of materials and mechanics of structure l.m.m.s, university of m'sila, m’sila 28000, algeria. claboratory of renewable energy and sustainable development (lresd), university of mentouri brothers constantine, constantine 25000, algeria. decole nationale polytechnique d’alger (enp), lgmd laboratory, b.p. 182, el-harrach, algiers, algeria. abstract. in this study, the design, analysis and optimization of the performance of a concentrated solar power plant that is based on the parabolic trough technology with a capacity of 100 mw equipped with a thermal energy storage system were conducted, in two representative sites in algeria (tamanrasset and m’sila). the system advisor model software is used to evaluate the technical and economic performances of the two proposed power plants, in addition to carrying out the process of optimizing the initial design of the two power plants by finding the optimal values of the solar multiple and full load hours of the thermal energy storage system, with the aim of increasing the annual energy production and reducing the levelized cost of electricity. the results of the performance analysis conducted on the optimized design showed that the optimum values of the solar multiple and full load hours of the thermal energy storage system for the proposed power plant at the tamanrasset site were found to be 2.4 and 7 h, respectively, with an annual electricity production of 514.6 gwh, and a minimum value of the levelized cost of electricity of 6.3¢/kwh. while the optimum performance of the proposed plant at the m'sila site can be achieved by selecting a solar multiple of 3 and 7 h for thermal energy storage system, with a high annual energy production of 451.84 gwh and a low value of the levelized cost of electricity of 7.8¢/kwh. the results demonstrate that csp plants using parabolic trough technology can increase energy security in the country, while reducing environmental concerns associated with the use of fossil materials. keywords: solar energy, concentrated solar power, parabolic trough power plant, system advisor model (sam). @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 4th may 2023; revised: 18th june 2023; accepted: 29th june 2023; available online: 5th july 2023 1. introduction the needs of mankind for energy are increasing every year, this is due both to the growth of the population, the development of production and technology, and to the increase in energy consumption in everyday life. as human demand for modern energy supply increases, attention to solar energy becomes more intense. consequently, there are active plans to utilize solar energy for different processes to minimize energy demand from conventional energy supply sources (bouguila & said, 2020). the production of electric energy by exploiting renewable energies, especially solar energy, is a challenge of great importance for the coming years (keykhah et al., 2021). in fact, algeria's electric power needs are rising every day. moreover, algeria will need more energy to implement its development plans. today, most of the energy production in algeria comes from fossil sources, the intensive use of these sources leads to the depletion of its reserves and thus the insecurity of energy in the country, because it is not considered a renewable energy source, in addition to the negative effects on the environment * corresponding author email: khaled.bouchareb@univ-msila.dz (k. bouchareb) (greenhouse gas emissions). with algeria's energy demand expected to increase by about 53%, its current reservoirs of conventional energy resources are expected to sufficiently support the country's electricity production for about 50 years (benhadji serradj et al., 2021). in order to remove all these restrictions, the algerian state must turn to renewable energies, especially solar energy, to exploit it in order to meet the increasing demand for energy in the country. algeria is the largest country in africa in terms of area, located in the center of north africa on the mediterranean coast, between latitudes 19° and 38°n and longitudes 8°w and 12°e, with an area of 2,381,741 km², and a transitional climate, from maritime in the northern regions to semi-arid and arid in the central and southern regions (benhadji serradj et al., 2021; keykhah et al., 2021). as it is located within the sun belt region, algeria has great potential for solar energy. it has one of the highest solar energy deposits in the world (abbas et al., 2013; t. e. boukelia et al., 2015b). the northern region sees approximately 2650 hours of the insolation time annually, while in the southern region it reaches about 3500 hours (stambouli et al., 2012). research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.54056 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.54056 mailto:khaled.bouchareb@univ-msila.dz https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3230-7202 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1962-4481 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6326-6717 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.54056&domain=pdf k. bouchareb et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 767-778 |768 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore the energy transition is algeria's path to a secure, environmentally friendly and economically prosperous future. the central element of this transition is the restructuring of our energy supply towards the use of renewable energies. this means that renewable energy will become our primary source of electricity. in recent years, there has been an increase in the level of use in the electricity sector. in response to the high demand for energy and the negative impacts on the environment, researchers around the world are working to find more sustainable alternative energy technologies. among the power generation technologies that have been developed, concentrated solar power (csp) systems are a direct alternative to power plants based on fossil fuels. csp plants can contribute 6% of the world's electric power demand by 2030 and 12% by 2050 (islam et al., 2018). csp appears to be the method of choice for large capacity, utility-scale electric generation in the near term. this technology has the possibility of energy storage and auxiliary heat production during sunlight unavailability. in csp systems, sunlight is concentrated using mirrors to create heat, then the heat is used to create steam, which is used to drive turbines and generators, just like in a conventional power station. since solar energy is not very dense, it is necessary to concentrate the solar radiation to obtain high temperatures that can be exploited to produce electricity (islam et al., 2018; stambouli et al., 2012). according to the concentrating geometry, csp systems can be classified into point and linear concentrators; solar tower and dish solar systems use point concentrators, while parabolic trough and linear fresnel collectors use linear concentrators (t. e. boukelia et al., 2015a; el gharbi et al., 2011). the csp plants have economic justification only for locations where direct normal irradiation (dni) values are greater than 5.5 kwh/m2/day or (2000 kwh/m2/year) (hirbodi et al., 2020). the parabolic trough technology power plant is one of the best proven csp systems for its maturity and applicability in arid and semi-arid regions (reddy & kumar, 2012). csp-based technology is suitable for high dni areas (praveen et al., 2018). with sunlight concentrated approximately 70-100 times by parabolic trough mirror technology, the operating temperature achieved is in the range of 350-550°c (ummadisingu & soni, 2011). the thermal energy collected at the solar field level is transported by a heat transfer fluid (htf) that circulates through the solar receivers and returns to a series of heat exchangers in the power block where superheated high-pressure steam is generated. the power block actually used in solar power plants is the steam cycle which uses a steam turbine generator to produce electrical energy (lovegrove & csiro, 2012). most designs of commercial parabolic trough technology csp plants contain a solar field and a power block, and in order to maintain a constant electrical energy production both thermal energy storage (tes) and fuel backup systems can be used (t. e. boukelia et al., 2015a). the majority of csp plants using parabolic trough technology are equipped with tes system to ensure constant energy production and to extend the plant's operating time during times of low or absent solar radiation (bouguila & said, 2020). reddy et al. (reddy & kumar, 2012) conducted a technical and economic study of a 5 mw csp plant with parabolic trough technology at 58 sites in india. the results showed that the annual electricity production in the studied sites ranged between 11 and 18 mw, and the levelized cost of electricity (lcoe) in jodhpur site amounted to 11.00 and 11.84 indian rupees/kwh for the plant that uses oil and water as htf, respectively. kalogirou (kalogirou, 2013) analyzed the technical characteristics, the cost of electricity produced and land area required, for three types of csp technology (parabolic trough, solar tower and solar dish) in cyprus. the results indicate that the csp plant with a parabolic trough and a tes system with a capacity of 4 h is the best option for installation in cyprus, since it has a high annual efficiency and does not require a large land area. a study by guzman et al. (guzman et al., 2014) where the performance of a parabolic trough csp plant with tes system for the city of barranquilla (colombia) is simulated for find the ideal plant design optimization and the key design parameters. the results showed that the studied plant could contribute 50% of the city's electrical consumption, and through the optimization results it was found that the solar multiple (sm) is 2 and 6 hours for the capacity of the tes system. bhuiyan et al. (bhuiyan et al., 2020) carried out a study to optimize key design parameters of a parabolic trough csp plant, in addition to evaluating the optimum design performance of the plant at eight different sites in bangladesh. the results showed that the power plant that uses molten salt as a htf offers better performance compared to the thermal oil plant. tahir et al. (tahir et al., 2021) evaluated the technical and economic feasibility of a csp plant with a parabolic trough collector at six sites in pakistan, and carried out an optimization study to obtain the optimal design of the proposed plants that reduces the lcoe. the results indicated that pishin site provided the lowest value for lcoe compared to other sites, and in terms of the availability of suitable infrastructure, it is noticed that quetta site is the ideal site for the construction of these plants. mohammadi et al. (mohammadi et al., 2021) conducted a technical, economic and environmental analysis of the performance of a solar power plant with a parabolic trough technology for thermal energy production in salt lake city (usa). the results revealed that the annual production of the plant amounted to 15,389.24 mwth, at a levelized cost of heat estimated at 26.3 $/mwth, and the results showed the optimization also has a significant impact of the values of the sm, the investment tax credit, and the total cost of the plant on the levelized cost of heat. bashir et al. (bashir & özbey, 2022) conducted a design study for a hypothetical csp plant with a parabolic trough collector with a capacity of 80 mw in sudan, and in order to determine the appropriate sites for the installation of such plants, they analyzed the thermal performance and economic feasibility of the plant studied in 15 sites in sudan. the results concluded that the city of wadi halfa, located in the northern region of sudan, is one of the suitable sites for the establishment of csp plants, given that it has the highest rates of dni, in addition to its good topographical characteristics and favorable climatic conditions. the annual electrical production of the proposed plant at the wadi halfa site was 281.145 gwh with an overall efficiency and capacity factor (cf) of 15% and 40.1%, respectively. through the economic analysis of the plant, the lcoe was 0.155$/kwh. focusing on algeria, benhadji serradj et al. (benhadji serradj et al., 2021) carried out a design and analysis of the technical and economic performance of a power plant using parabolic trough technology in the city of tamanrasset (southern algeria). they found that the plant could provide about 78% and 60% of the city's electrical consumption during winter and summer respectively, and that the lcoe was about 0.062$/kwh with a payback period of 8.78 years. benabdellah et al. (benabdellah & ghenaiet, 2021) conducted a technoeconomic analysis of the integrated solar combined cycle k. bouchareb et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 767-778 |769 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore (iscc) power plant that uses parabolic trough technology and is currently operating in the hassi r'mel region (southern algeria). the studied plant is equipped with a new tes system. the obtained results show significant improvements in both the overall performance of the studied plant and the efficiency of converting solar energy into electrical energy. the results of the economic evaluation of the studied plant showed that the lcoe was about 9.75 ¢/kwh. in addition, the integration of the tes system into the power plant helps better stability of the grid, and the modified power plant can save about 30 million$ in natural gas consumption. debbache et al. (debbache et al., 2018) conducted an investigation study to find out the effect of some parameters of the design of the parabolic trough collector (aperture width and focal distance) on the energy produced for the csp plant that depends on the parabolic trough technology, proposed in the city of touggourt (southern algeria). the results of the study show that the electricity production increases with the increase in aperture width with the smallest focal distance. in addition, it was found that the best design for a parabolic trough collector is an aperture width of 5 m and a focal distance of 0.5 m which leads to an annual production of 30 mwh. achour et al. (achour et al., 2018) examined the performance of a power plant based on iscc technology in southern algeria by developing a thermodynamic model to evaluate both the overall performance of the hybrid solar power plant and the intensity of solar radiation. the results showed that the efficiency of converting solar energy into electricity during sunny hours reaches 14.4%. in addition, the flow rate of the htf and the solar incidence angle on the collector surface are among the factors that affect the amount of electricity generated. from the above literature review, it is clear that the majority of studies related to the design, performance evaluation and optimization of csp plants with a parabolic trough collector are conducted at sites in asia, india, bangladesh, and north and south america. however, the most of the available research works on the deployment of csp plants with parabolic trough technology in algeria is generally limited to a preliminary evaluation of the advantages of their installation and a study of their economic feasibility. numerous researches related to the design, performance analysis and optimization of the parabolic trough csp plants in algeria, have been performed. however, to the best knowledge of us, the most of these studies were carried out on grounds located in the southern region of the country. the question arises whether these studies can be used to simulate the parabolic trough csp plants in northern algeria such as the m'sila site which has an important potential solar energy as shown by (kherbiche et al., 2021). research in this aspect is very important due to the urgent need to find more sustainable alternative energy technologies such as exploiting renewable energy sources to meet the increasing demand for electricity in algeria and reducing dependence on traditional energy resources and the resulting negative effects on the environment. for this reason, this study is being conducted to design, analyze and optimize the performance of a 100 mw csp plant based on parabolic trough technology with a tes system at two representative sites in algeria. an important aspect of this analysis is the comparison of the results of two representative sites in algeria (tamanrasset and m'sila). 2. methodology the design and analysis of the technical and economic performance of the csp plant based on the proposed parabolic trough technology is carried out at the two selected sites using system advisor model (sam), a software used to design and evaluate the technical and economic potential of solar power plants, and to assist in the decision-making of those involved in the renewable energy industry (achour et al., 2018). it was developed by the national renewable energy laboratory (nrel). the methodology of this study consists of the following steps: (i) collecting meteorological data for selected locations, (ii) design of a 100 mw csp plant with tes, (iii) evaluation of the performance of the preliminary design of the proposed solar power plant in two representative sites in algeria (tamanrasset in the far south and m’sila in the northern region), (iv) study the environmental impacts: water consumption, carbon dioxide (co2) emissions and natural gas preservation, and (v) optimization of the parabolic trough power plant with tes. the main parameters of the optimization process are full load hours of the tes and the sm. 2.1 site selection and resource assessment to evaluate the performance of the proposed csp plant, the sam software needs the meteorological data for the two selected sites, which were obtained by creating a typical meteorological year 3 (tmy3) weather file data format from the metonorm7 software database. the average daily dni in algerian territory ranges between 4.66 kwh/m2 in the northern regions and 7.26 kwh/m2 for the southern areas, and this corresponds to 1700 kwh/ m2/year and 2650 kwh/ m2/year for the northern and southern regions, respectively (taqiy eddine boukelia & mecibah, 2013; kherbiche et al., 2021). in this study, two representative sites in algeria providing average annual dni greater than 5.5 kwh/m2/day were selected to analyze and optimize the performance of the proposed csp plant. the two selected sites are tamanrasset in the far south, and m’sila for the northern region. the characteristics of the two selected sites, tamanrasset and m’sila, are presented in table 1. in figure 1 are shown the monthly changes of average dni and ambient temperature for the tamanrasset and m’sila sites. comparatively, the tamanrasset site is characterized by a high irradiation level of more than 7 kwh/m2/day throughout the year except for the months of september and december. during march, the dni reached its maximum value of 9.019 kwh/m2/day, while december recorded its lowest value at 6.703 kwh/m2/day. it can also be observed that the maximum and minimum values of the average ambient temperature were respectively in the months of june and january, on the other hand the average dni at the m’sila site has a maximum during table 1 characteristics of the selected locations analyzed in this study. location latitude and longitude elevation (m) daily average dni(kwh/m2/day) daily average temperature(°c) tamanrasset 22.78° n, 5.51° e 718 7.70 22.8 m’sila 35.70° n, 4.54° e 476 6.25 21.6 k. bouchareb et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 767-778 |770 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore july of 7.934 kwh/m2/day and a minimum of 4.753 kwh/m2/day during december. in addition, the average maximum and minimum temperature values were recorded in july and january, respectively. 2.2 parabolic trough solar thermal power plant among the csp technologies available, the parabolic trough technology is today the most widespread, the most successful and the most developed for the production of electricity (taqiy eddine boukelia & mecibah, 2013). figure 2 is a schematic diagram of parabolic trough solar power plants with tes. it can be seen that these power plants consist of three main parts, including the solar field, the tes system, and the power block (belgasim & elmnefi, 2014). the solar collectors are arranged in a series configuration known as loops and oriented in a northsouth direction to follow the sun from east to west. tes can be used with solar power plants to ensure the continuity of electricity production. normally, the tes capacity is in the order of several hours during which it is filled with htf during the day and emptied after sunset so that electricity is still produced even after sunset. 2.3 characteristics of the proposed csp plant design the csp plant subject to this study consists of 898160 m2 of solar field reflector based on the one of ls3 model (luz solar collector, third generation). these collectors are equipped with a schott ptr70 2008 type vacuum receiver tube. the ls3 solar collectors are oriented in the north-south direction and its direction axis is parallel to the horizontal plane. the htf used in the solar field is therminol vp-1, and molten salt as the storage fluid, these two traditional htf fluids are often used in csp-based power generation systems (bouguila & said, 2020). the solar multiple (sm) is defined as the ratio between thermal power obtained by the solar field at design point and thermal power required by the power block at nominal conditions, and it can be expressed as (marugán-cruz et al., 2019) : int th sf design po th pb e sm e = (1) where: eth sf is the thermal energy obtained by the solar field and eth pb is the thermal energy required by the power block at nominal conditions. the proposed csp plant has a tes system in the form of two circular tanks containing molten salt which consists of 60% sodium nitrate (nano3) and 40% potassium nitrate (kno3) (purohit & purohit, 2017). tes system allows the supply of thermal energy to the power block when solar radiation is low or absent during the day or night (ghodbane et al., 2021). the full load hours of tes for a csp plant specifies the number of hours thermal storage can supply energy to the power block to operate at the designed input level (t. e. boukelia et al., 2015b), and is given by the expression: des tes tes des cycle p h h  = (2) where: htes is the thermal energy storage system capacity; pdes is the design cycle thermal requirement; htes the total number of fig. 1 average dni per month and ambient temperature for the two selected sites (tamanrasset and m'sila). fig. 2 schematic diagram of a parabolic trough csp plant with tes system. k. bouchareb et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 767-778 |771 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore desired storage hours; and des cycle  the design point cycle efficiency. for the initial analysis, the value of the sm is set as 2 and the full load hours for tes are taken to be 6 h. the initial design of the 100 mw parabolic trough solar thermal power plant with tes system was carried out in order to evaluate its performance in the cities of tamanrasset and m’sila. optimal values of sm and full load hours for tes will be obtained through the initial design optimization process. table 2 summarizes the initial design parameters of the proposed csp plant. 2.3.1 energy analysis the total incident solar energy received by the solar field opening is given as: cos inc q a dni=   (3) where a is the collector’s aperture area and the angle of incidence. the total utile energy delivered by the solar field is presented as: ( ) field f sfo sfi q m h h=  − (4) where: mf is the mass flow rate of the htf, hsfo enthalpy at the outlet of solar field, and hsfi enthalpy at the inlet of the solar field. therefore, the energy efficiency of the solar field can be found as: field sf inc q q  = (5) the power block energy efficiency is expressed as: net pb inp w q  = (6) table 2 characteristics of the proposed parabolic trough power plant (cáceres et al., 2016; guzman et al., 2014; hirbodi et al., 2020). characteristics value solar field total field reflector area solar multiple field htf fluid number of loops single loop aperture field htf min operating temperature field htf max operating temperature design loop inlet temperature design loop outlet temperature water usage per wash number of washes per year 898160 m2 2 therminol vp-1 206 4360 m2 12°c 400 °c 293 °c 391 °c 0.7 l/m2 63 collectors collectors type reflective aperture area aperture width, total structure length of collector assembly number of modules per assembly length of single module luz ls-3 545 m2 5.75 m 100 m 12 8.33 m receivers receiver type absorber tube inner diameter absorber tube outer diameter glass envelope inner diameter glass envelope outer diameter schott ptr 70 2008 0.066 m 0.07 m 0.115 m 0.12 m power cycle design gross output estimated gross to net conversion factor estimated net output at design (nameplate) rated cycle conversion efficiency design inlet temperature design outlet temperature condenser type 111 mwe 0.9 100 mwe 0.356 391 °c 293 °c evaporative thermal storage storage type full load of tes storage volume tes thermal capacity parallel tank pairs storage htf min operating temperature storage htf max operating temperature storage htf fluid two tank 6 h 25304.4m3 1870.79mwht 1 238 °c 593 °c hitec solar salt k. bouchareb et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 767-778 |772 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore where: wnet is the net power generation and qinp is the total thermal energy received by the power block. the plant’s final energy efficiency is calculated as follows: net overall inc w q  = (7) the net capacity factor (cf) of a designed csp plant with a capacity of 100 mw is expressed as: 24 net w cf h nd plant power capacité day =        (8) where: nd is the number of days in a year. 2.3.2 economic analysis the lcoe is one of the most important indicators used in evaluating the economic performance of csp plants (azouzoute et al., 2020); it is calculated by dividing the accumulated construction and operating costs of a solar power plant by the total annual energy produced during the operating life of the plant, as given in the following equation (cáceres et al., 2016): ( ) ( ) 0 1 1 1 1 n n nn n n nn c i d lcoe q d = = + + = +   (9) where: i0 is the initial investment expenditures, cn is the annual total costs for the year n, qn is the electricity produced for the year n, n is the economic life of the power plant, and d is the discount rate. the assumptions and economic data used in the simulations on the sam software for the parabolic trough csp plant are presented in table 3. 3. results and discussions the design, analysis and optimization of the performance of a csp plant that is based on the parabolic trough technology described in the preceding sections yielded results that are now presented and discussed. it will be seen that csp plants using parabolic trough technology are one of the most promising technologies in the field of electric power generation in algeria. 3.1 performance analysis of the csp plant design figure 3 shows the hourly data of the thermal energy incident on the solar field and the thermal energy produced from the solar field, the input of thermal energy for the power block, the thermal energy stored in the tes system, and the net electrical output of the proposed power plant at the tamanrasset site. the net electrical output depends on the incident irradiation and the thermal energy input to the power cycle. the value of the maximum thermal energy incident on the solar field was found to be about 840.53 mw in march, while the maximum value of the thermal energy entered into the power cycle was recorded at about 311.79 mw in march, due to the availability of solar resources for the selected site in this period of the year. during the period from february to october, the solar resources are high, the tes system tank is charged during the day with thermal energy in excess of the power block needs, and at the time of low solar radiation or after sunset, the tes system provides thermal energy to the power block to continue to produce electrical energy. table 3 the main financial input parameters used in the economic modeling of the proposed csp plant (benhadji serradj et al., 2021; enjavi-arsanjani et al., 2015; ikhlef & larbi, 2020; zhang et al., 2013). financial data value analysis period loan term loan rate inflation rate real discount rate nominal discount rate assessed percent insurance rate sales tax state income tax rate 30 years 20 years 8% years 4.6%/year in 2018 4%/year in 2018 8.78%/year 80% of installed cost 0.3% of installed cost 5% of installed cost 15%/year direct costs site improvements solar field cost htf system cost storage cost power block balance of plant contingency 15 $/m2 150 $/m2 60 $/m2 65 $/kwht 1150 $/kwht 120 $/kwht 10% of direct costs indirect costs engineering, procurement and construction other costs 13% of direct costs 3.5% of direct costs operation and maintenance costs fixed cost by capacity variable cost by generation 70 $/kw-year 3 $/mwh k. bouchareb et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 767-778 |773 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore figure 4 presents the hourly data for thermal energy incident on the solar field to the net electrical output of the proposed csp plant at the m'sila site. the peak value of the solar thermal incident was found around 705.08 mw in july, which is lower than the maximum recorded at the tamanrasset site. this is due to the noticeable difference in the values of dni between the two sites. the maximum thermal energy input to the power block was recorded as 319.29 mw in august. in addition, it should be noted that the tes system during the summer months contributes significantly to extending the period of electrical energy production after sunset, due to the availability of solar resources during this period, while the amount of energy stored in the winter months is very low, which fig. 3 field incident solar thermal power, thermal power input for a power cycle and electrical output (tamanrasset). fig. 4 field incident solar thermal power, thermal power input for a power cycle and electrical output (m’sila). k. bouchareb et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 767-778 |774 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore does not allow the system storage extends the duration of electrical energy production until after sunset. figure 5 shows the average monthly electric power generation obtained from the proposed csp plant in both tamanrasset and m’sila sites. the monthly energy generated from the parabolic trough power plant in tamanrasset peaks during the month of march and may, reaching a 48.06 gwh and 45.12 gwh, respectively, the lowest value of the monthly energy generated for the tamanrasset site was found during the month of december, reaching a value of 26.41 gwh. for the proposed power plant in the m’sila site, it is seen that the highest monthly production of electric energy was found during the months of june and july, with a value of 42.23 gwh and 45.99 gwh, respectively, and the minimum values of monthly generated energy were found during january and december, which are 13.65 gwh and 9.22 gwh respectively. it is clear that the monthly variation of the net energy production, for each site, almost follows the monthly variation of the dni. the annual production of energy generated from the two csp plants was 454.51 gwh, 329.66 gwh for tamanrasset and m’sila site, respectively. it can be seen that the proposed power plant in tamanrasset provided the highest annual generation of electric energy compared to the proposed plant in m’sila, and the reason is due to the marked difference in the values of dni, which is shown in figure 1. the waterfall diagram in figure 6 indicates the annual flow of energy from incident solar irradiation on the solar field to net electrical output. it shows the annual energy performance of each component of the proposed power plant at the two selected sites. as for the power plant in the city of tamanrasset, the total annual solar energy incident on the solar collector amounted to 2552.34 gwh/year, while the amount of thermal energy produced by the solar field amounted to 1362.74 gwh/year. however, the heat energy transferred to the power block is 1314.88 gwh/year. the thermal energy produced from the solar field of the proposed plant at the m’sila site amounted to 983.7 gwh/year, and the power block received an amount of 974.14 gwh/year. it can be concluded that the main energy losses that occur during energy transfer between the various components of the proposed plant are at the solar field and power block level. the losses in the solar field are found mainly due to the thermal losses in the receivers, while the losses in the power block are the mechanical losses, and the electrical losses necessary to operate the auxiliary equipment. the annual amount of electrical energy generated from the proposed csp plant in tamanrasset was found to be 454.51 gwh, while m’sila recorded 329.66 gwh, with a cf of 51.9% and 37.7% for tamanrasset and m’sila, respectively. in addition, the efficiency value of solar-to-electrical energy conversion was 18% and 16.08% for the two selected sites, respectively. it is clear that the proposed power plant in the city of tamanrasset offers high performance compared to the power plant in m’sila, because the levels of solar irradiation in tamanrasset are higher than m’sila. table 4 summarizes the annual performance comparison of the two proposed power plants in algeria. 3.2 cost analysis the economic study of the two proposed plants is based on a lcoe calculation, the lcoe value ranged between 6.46 ¢$/kw h in tamanrasset, 8.82 ¢$/kw h in m’sila. according to the international renewable energy agency (irena) 2020 report, 150 mw of new csp plants were commissioned globally in 2020 (irea, 2020). the values of fig. 5 monthly energy generation for the proposed parabolic trough power plants in algeria. fig. 6 annual energy flow of the proposed parabolic trough power plants. table 4 comparison of annual energy yields for proposed parabolic trough plants in algeria. parameter tamanrasset m’sila dni (kwh/m2/year) annual power generation (gwh) capacity factor (%) mean efficiency of the solar field(𝜼𝑺𝑭) mean efficiency of the power block(𝜼𝑷𝑩) mean efficiency of the plant(𝜼𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒍) 2810.5 454.51 51.90 53.96 34.56 18.00 2281.25 329.66 37.70 47.98 33.84 16.08 k. bouchareb et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 767-778 |775 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore lcoes obtained for the two power plants in this study are lower than the irena global weighted average of 0.108 $/kwh in 2020 for csp plants. the plant located in tamanrasset provides the highest annual energy production with the lowest lcoe, while the m’sila plant offers an average annual energy production with a relatively high lcoe. 3.3 environmental impacts analysis considering the energy transition toward clean energy, csp technologies are more beneficial to the environment because it emits very few damaging pollutants and reduces fossil fuel consumption (praveen et al., 2018). therefore, it is necessary to study the environmental impacts of csp plants in order to estimate their potential benefits. among these effects are natural gas preservation, carbon dioxide (co2) emission, and water consumption. the software sam is used to calculate the amount of water consumed by these plants. in general, the water use of csp plants is divided into three main parts, the washing system, the steam generation, and the cooling system. from the obtained results, it is clear that there is a difference in the amount of water consumed by the proposed plants, which is estimated at 1,576,475 m3 and 1,215,756 m3 in tamanrasset and m’sila, respectively. the proposed csp plant at the tamanrasset site consumes more water annually than the proposed power plant in m’sila. reliance on the exploitation of traditional energy to produce electrical energy leads to energy insecurity, in addition to the fact that the exploitation of these resources results in an increase in the amount of co2 emitted into the atmosphere, which leads to global warming and climate change (solomon et al., 2009). to produce 1 kwh of electricity, 0.285 m3 of natural gas are required (hassabelgabo abdelrazig ibrahim & mohammed elmardi suleiman khayal, 2020). and 1 kwh of electricity generation produces 0.35 m3 (0.66 kg) of co2 emissions (brander et al., 2011). the calculations that we have made suggest that the quantities of natural gas and co2 emissions that we avoid through our use of csp plants to generate electricity are very significant quantities compared to conventional electricity generation systems. the results of the environmental impact analysis of the proposed csp plants, including the amount of natural gas preserved, reduced co2 emissions, and annual water consumption are summarized in table 5. 3.4 optimization of the initial parabolic trough plant design the smaller solar field of a csp plant with parabolic trough technology reduces the thermal energy supplied to the power block, thus reducing the amount of electrical energy produced. the presence of a large solar field means an increase in the thermal energy produced, which is greater than the needs of the power block, and with insufficient storage capacity to store the excess thermal energy, there will be thermal energy loss and an increased investment cost for the csp plant. thus, optimization analysis is essential for the whole system. the optimization procedure helps to determine the lowest value of lcoe with a higher amount of annual electrical energy produced (awan et al., 2020). optimization is about finding the combination of the two inputs that minimizes the lcoe while maximizing annual power generation. the variation of two main design parameters, namely the sm and the full load hours of tes, is used to optimize the proposed design. the size of the solar field has a direct impact on annual electricity production and lcoe. an increase in the sm value leads to a corresponding increase in the solar field aperture and, thus, an increase in the thermal energy produced by the solar field. as a result, more electricity is generated, thus lowering the lcoe value. the variations of the annual energy production and lcoe with the sm of the proposed csp plant in both tamanrasset and m’sila sites are shown in figures 7(a) and 7(b), respectively. as shown in figure 7(a) the lcoe decreases with the increase of the sm that reaches 2.4 for the proposed plant in tamanrasset, table 5 annual quantities of preserved natural gas, carbon dioxide mitigation and annual water consumption of the proposed csp plants (m3). parameters tamanrasset m’sila natural gas preservation (m3) co2 mitigation (m3) water usage (m3) 129,536,887 159,080,387 1,576,475 93,953,884.3 115,381,963 1,215,756 fig. 7 the variation of annual energy generation and lcoe with sm of the proposed csp plant in: (a) tamanrasset and (b) m’sila. k. bouchareb et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 767-778 |776 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore beyond this value there is a significant increase in the value of the lcoe with a slight increase in the amount of annual electricity produced. the minimum lcoe was recorded to be around 6.33 ȼ$ /kwh with a sm of 2.4. the lcoe value rises with higher sm values, and this is due to the fact that the capital cost of the plant increases with the increase in the size of the solar field. the annual power output of the plant clearly increases with the increase in sm, but this increase becomes negligible for higher sm values. the optimal values of the sm for the proposed csp plant in m’sila was 3 with a lcoe of 7.84 ȼ$ /kwh, in addition to an increase in the annual production of electric energy, as shown in figure 7(b). the full load hours of the tes system in the csp plant are the second design parameter that has been studied for optimization. when solar radiation is low or after sunset the tes system delivers more thermal energy to the power block, thus allowing the plant to generate electricity for longer time intervals. the variations of the annual energy production and lcoe with the full load hours of the tes for the csp plant proposed at tamanrasset and m’sila sites are presented in figures 8(a) and 8(b), respectively. as shown in figure 8(a), the lcoe decreases with the increase of the full load hours of the tes, reaching a value of 6.3 ȼ$ /kwh for the tamanrasset site, the lcoe increases after another increase in the full load hours of the tes system. the lowest lcoe values correspond to 7 h of tes. the optimum full load hours obtained for the proposed power plant at the m’sila site was 7 h with the lowest lcoe value of 7.8 ȼ$ /kwh, and with an increase in power production as shown in figure 8(b). if the full load hours of tes are increased beyond 7 h for both the proposed csp plants in tamanrasset and m’sila, the lcoe value increases with a slight increase in annual energy production because the solar fields of the two power plants are not able to generate enough surplus thermal energy for a large tes system. as for the increase in the lcoe value, the reason is due to the high investment cost of the tes system for both plants. the optimized design results obtained for the two proposed csp plants are summarized in table 6. as can be seen from the data in table 6, it is evident that there is a significant improvement in the amount of annual electric energy produced, cf and lcoe values for the optimized configuration compared to that of the initial design of the two studied plants. fig. 8 the variations of annual energy generation and lcoe with full load hours of tes of the proposed csp plant in (a) tamanrasset and (b) m’sila. table 6 performance comparison of the optimized and initial design of a proposed csp plant for two sites in algeria. parameters tamanrasset m’sila initial optimized initial optimized annual energy output (gwh) capacity factor (%) solar multiple full load hours of tes lcoe (ȼ$ /kwh) 454.51 51.9 2 6 6.46 514.6 58.8 2.4 7 6.3 329.66 37.67 2 6 8.82 451.84 51.63 3 7 7.8 table 7 performance comparison of the proposed csp plant with other similar literature. author annual energy generation (gw h) mean annual efficiency (%) lcoe (¢$/kwh) (benhadji serradj et al., 2021) (abbas et al., 2013) (awan et al., 2019) current study 390.7 223 ‒ 415 ranges from 355.18to 397.48 451.84‒ 514.6 15.3 13.8 ‒ 16.4 16.73 ‒ 17.93 16 – 18 6.2 11.93 ‒ 29.58 10.5 ‒ 11 6.3 ‒ 7.8 k. bouchareb et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(4), 767-778 |777 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 3.5 comparison of output performance with similar studies table 7 presents the results of comparing the performance of the csp plant with the proposed parabolic trough technology in two locations in algeria with the results reported in some similar studies on this technology in different locations around the world. according to this table, it is found that the average plant efficiency and lcoe values are in close agreement with the results obtained in the reviewed literature with a significant increase in the value of the annual energy generated. 4. conclusion the present study was conducted to design, analyze and optimize the performance of a concentrated solar power plant based on parabolic trough technology with a thermal energy storage system at two representative sites in algeria with a wet cooling system, the system advisor model software was used to evaluate the performance of the two proposed power plants. the initial analysis of the proposed design showed that the annual production of the proposed concentrated solar power plant in tamanrasset and m’sila amounted to 454.51 gwh and 329.66 gwh respectively. it is noteworthy that the annual energy production has a significant relationship with the dni values and the climatic conditions of the site. evaluation of the economic performance of the proposed concentrated solar power plants showed that the power plant in the tamanrasset site has the lowest lcoe at 6.46 ȼ$/kwh, as for the proposed plant in m’sila. it is observed that the lcoe is less than 8.82 ȼ$/kwh. since the two proposed power plants at the two selected sites have the same investment costs estimated at 627,808,128 $ per site, it is important to note that the lcoe values are inversely proportional to the annual production of each plant. the environmental impact analysis revealed that the proposed csp plant in the tamanrasset site consumes more annual water than the proposed power plant in m'sila. it can be seen that the more arid and desert climate of the site, the greater the annual water consumption of the plant. in terms of the amount of annual carbon dioxide emissions that can be avoided through the use of csp plants to generate electricity instead of conventional electricity generation systems, the environmental analysis showed that the solar power plant in the tamanrasset site is able to avoid the amount of carbon dioxide emissions estimated at 159,080,387 m3, while the proposed plant at the m'sila site has the lowest annual amount of co2 emissions estimated at 115,381,963 m3. the comparison of the production of electricity through csp plants and conventional electricity generation systems that depend on fossil resources, shows that a very large amount of natural gas is preserved when using csp plants. the optimization procedure is based on considering the lowest value of lcoe with the largest annual energy production. the proposed design optimization process is done by modifying two main design parameters, namely the sm and full load hours of tes. the optimization study showed that there is a significant increase in the annual energy production, reaching 514.6 gwh and 451.84 gwh for the two sites, tamanrasset and m’sila, respectively, with a clear decrease in the values of lcoe. this type of csp plant, which is based on parabolic trough technology, has shown good results in terms of power generation and the price of electricity production in algeria. these results may be encouraging for the algerian government to exploit its large potential of solar energy to generate electricity on a large scale and reduce the use of fossil materials, therefore, the spread of csp plants in algeria is a major step for the renewable energy sector in the country, not only to add new energy, but also to increase energy security and address growing environmental problems due to the use of fossil fuels. conflicts of interest: no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references abbas, m., belgroun, z., aburidah, h., & merzouk, n. k. 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(2013). concentrated solar power plants: review and design methodology. renewable and sustainable energy reviews, 22, 466– 481. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.01.032 © 2023. the author(s). this article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution-sharealike 4.0 (cc by-sa) international license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2012.11.074 https://doi.org/10.3390/su8020106 https://doi.org/10.1109/irsec.2018.8702844 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2011.05.065 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2015.03.216 https://doi.org/10.18186/thermal.888167 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2014.10.203 https://doi.org/10.33564/ijeast.2020.v05i07.003 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2019.109642 https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0013699 https://www.irena.org/-/media/files/irena/agency/publication/2018/jan/irena_2017_power_costs_2018.pdf https://www.irena.org/-/media/files/irena/agency/publication/2018/jan/irena_2017_power_costs_2018.pdf https://www.irena.org/-/media/files/irena/agency/publication/2018/jan/irena_2017_power_costs_2018.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2018.04.097 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2012.01.014 https://doi.org/10.18186/thermal.915413 https://doi.org/10.18280/ijsdp.160811 https://doi.org/10.1533/9780857096173.1.3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2019.01.054 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2021.101412 https://doi.org/10.3390/en11040741 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.04.059 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2012.09.003 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812721106 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2012.04.031 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126125 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2011.07.040 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.01.032 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ international journal of renewable energy development int. j. renew. energy dev. 2023, 12 (3), 448-458 | 448 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49759 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023.the author(s). published by cbiore contents list available at ijred website international journal of renewable energy development journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id design, optimization and economic viability of an industrial low temperature hot water production system in algeria: a case study karim kacia* , mustapha merzouka , nachida kasbadji merzoukb , mohammed missoumc , mohammed el ganaouid , omar behare , rabah djedjigd alaboratoire de physique fondamental et appliqué département des energies renouvelables, faculté de technologie, université blida, w. blida, algeria. bunité de développement des equipements solaires, udes, centre de développement des energies renouvelables, cder, 42004, w. tipaza, algérie. cdepartment of mechanical engineering, faculty of technology, university center of morceli, abdellah, tipaza, algeria. duniversity of lorraine, lermab, iut de longwy, 186 rue de lorriane, 54400 cosnes-et-romain, france. eccrc, king abdullah university of science and technology (kaust), thuwal, 23955, saudi arabia. abstract. solar energy has a great potential in many areas of industrial activity in algeria. this is because most of algeria has high levels of sustainable solar insulation. unfortunately, few industries use solar energy for hot water generation, but some industrial processes require hot water at temperatures that can be easily obtained from solar thermal panels. this paper presents a case study to investigate the technical and financial feasibility of a solar-powered industrial agro-processing system in algiers. based on the solar collectors connection type for which the economic feasibility study was carried out, an appropriate design of the system was determined. the latter was actually done by analyzing the levelized cost of energy savings. the design of the thermo-solar process is carried out based on f-chart method with a new approach by integrating the incidence angle modifier and of using real and experimental data requirements to determine realistic achievable performance of the solar process. the results showed that, in comparison to the currently used electrical system, the electrical energy savings achieved by the solar-powered system make it an economically viable option with a solar coverage rate of 80%. the investment depreciation balance shows that the use of such a thermal solar energy system will be more competitive than fossil fuels system if the price of electricity in the country increases from 0.048 to 0.075 €/kwh. keywords: process industrial application, solar thermal collector, thermo-solar system, techno-economic assessment, water heating. @ the author(s). published by cbiore. this is an open access article under the cc by-sa license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). received: 12th nov 2022; revised: 24th january 2023; accepted: 6th march 2023; available online: 21st march 2023 1. introduction in recent years, interest in solar development has increased in algeria since the publication of the renewable energy and energy efficiency plan 2016-2030 (the minister of energy transition and renewable energies., 2022). the industrial sector is a promising area for the development of solar thermal technology, accounting for more than 25% of total final energy consumption (international energy agency, 2020). the efficiency of converting solar energy into heat (up to 70%) is much higher than converting it into electricity (about 15%), demonstrating the benefits of integrating solar thermal energy into industrial processes. the heating process consumes a lot of thermal energy. globally, 50% of energy consumption is used for heating applications (valderrama et al., 2022). a great fraction (about 90%) of this heat comes from fossil fuels, which emit large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and thus exacerbate the effects of climate change (intergovernmental panel on climate change ipcc (2022) mitigation of climate change; assessment report on climate change). statistics show that 60% of industrial processes use heat at temperatures below 400°c, while more than 30% operate at temperatures * corresponding author email: kkaci2022@gmail.com (k. kaci) below 100°c (zühlsdorfa et al., 2019). therefore, integrating solar energy into industry can help to reduce the effects of climate change, especially in low-temperature processes. nowadays, around 456 gwth of solar thermal output has been installed globally (national renewable energy laboratory. 2021). low temperature thermal industrial processes recorded growth of 1.5% in 2016 (meyers et al 2018). according to a recent study, published by solirco, the industrial sector used 416 414 m2of installed space, 40% of which was used in the agro-food sector (the international renewable energy agency. 2015) in fact, the heat generated by solar thermal systems is less used in industry than in domestic applications (renewable energy policy network for the 21st century. 2016). however, several studies related to the use of solar heat for industrial processes revealed that solar thermal industrial heating systems can achieve higher efficiencies compared to domestic applications, especially at lower temperatures (farjana et al., 2017 and sharma., et al 2017). a study conducted by schweiger et al. (2000) in the framework of the european project poship, which focuses on evaluating the potential of industrial solar systems in spain and portugal, shows that the latter can supply research article https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49759 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.49759 mailto:kkaci2022@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8787-2025 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0362-5674 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5900-6675 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4910-6052 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4910-6052 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7058-5935 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8898-6737 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.14710/ijred.2023.49759&domain=pdf k. kaci et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 448-458 | 449 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore 5804 gwh, or 3.6% of the total energy demand (schweigeretal.,2000). muller et al. (2004) investigated solar heating systems as part of the european project promise, and found that austria has an energy solar potential of 264 pj, representing 30% of total energy consumption. about 32 % is used to generate thermal energy below 200 °c. kalogirou et al. (2003) studied the potential of solar industrial process heating in cyprus for different temperature levels. similar studies have also been reported for australia by fuller et al., (2011). kummert et al. (2000) carried out an experimental study on installation of a thermo-solar process, considering typical daily profiles. several studies have proven that the application of solar thermal systems in industry can lead to significant energy savings. as a part of an iea project shc task 33 solar peces task iv, several configurations for thermo-solar processes thermal systems have been carried out in several european countries (weiss., 2005). lima et al., (2015) demonstrated the feasibility of integrating a thermal solar process in a hospital in brazil. surech el et al., (2017) presented a techno-economic study on integrated thermal solar processes in the indian textile industry. anubhav et al., (2016) developed a model of a thermal solar process for the automotive industry in 2016. the economic analysis shows a payback period of 18 months. quijera et al., (2011) studied the feasibility of integrating a solar thermal system into the dairy industry through mathematical modeling. therefore, the work suggests that the solar thermal potential of the industrial processes studied is important and should be considered for future energy. moreover, akssas et al, (2013) conducted a technoeconomic analysis of a solar water heater for a hospital center in batna in algeria, to study the technoeconomic feasibility of solar heating water integration. the results showed the possibility of significant energy savings with installation (total annual provided energy = 1427,1mwh and a total annual net reduction of ghg = 905,84 tons of co2 (pahlavana 2018). review of previously published studies and various applications demonstrate the great potential of integrating solar heat into industrial processes. to encourage the deployment of solar energy, real case studies must be investigated to provide accurate information about the performance and the costs of solar-powered industrial processes. in this direction, the objective of this work is to design, evaluate the energy performance and determine the costs of a thermo-solar process that would be integrated to a food industrial process in algeria. the design of the thermo-solar process is carried out based on f-chart method with a new approach by integrating the incidence angle modifier and of using real and experimental data requirements to determine realistic achievable performance of the solar process. this methodology was implemented into trnsys software to facilitate modeling and device management of the entire system. in the following, firstly the case study is presented, then the methodology used to design the different solar system components is detailed and finally the energy and economic performances of the whole thermo-solar system are evaluated. 2. methodology 2.1. presentation of the case study the thermo-solar process system considered in this study is an agro-food industrial process producing flavors and perfumes located in algiers, algeria (longitude: 2.95°e, latitude: 36.7°n and elevation: 350 m). fig. 1. thermo-solar process into the industrial food process the system consists of primary and secondary circuits as shown in figure 1. the primary circuit includes a solar collector's field and a heat exchanger. water is heated up in flat plat collectors and it is used as a working fluid to power a secondary circuit through water/water heat exchanger. the secondary circuit feeds the industrial process and it is equipped with a storage tank which serves to store hot water to be used when solar energy is not enough available. another heat exchanger is integrated in storage tank to provide high modularity to the system. a back-up electric heater is used in addition to the solar heating to ensure the continuous supply of hot water to the industrial process. for starting or stopping the pump, a regulation system was used. the thermo-solar process is designed to produce 3 m3/day of hot water at 60°c. the hourly daily load profile imposed by the used process is illustrated in figure 2. the 3 m3 of hot water demand is situated between 11 to 12 am and 14 to 15 pm, which coincide with the availability of solar radiation. 2.2. weather data and validation validation of the weather data model involves comparing predicted and measured solar radiation and ambient temperature. the measurements are provided by the algiers meteorological station (centre for the development of renewable energy of algeria., 2021), while the forecasts are obtained from the trnsys software (meteonormsoftware8., 2022). figure (3a) and (3b) highlight the measured solar radiation intensity and ambient temperature at the site of algiers in 2020. a good agreement between predicted and measured results was observed. the model demonstrated high accuracy in predicting the site's solar radiation and ambient temperature, allowing the system's performance to be estimated with reasonable accuracy. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 w at er lo ad (l ite r) times (hours) fig. 2 hourly daily load profile imposed by the process k. kaci et al int. j. renew. energy dev 2023, 12(3), 448-458 | 450 issn: 2252-4940/© 2023. the author(s). published by cbiore janu febr marc apri may june july augu sept octo nove dece 0 50 100 150 200 250 m on th ly s ol ar ir ra di at io n (k w h/ m 2) months results meteonorm results measured a) janu febr marc apri may june july augu sept octo nove dece 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 a m bi en t t em pe ra tu re (° c ) months results meteonorm results measured b) fig.3 the radiometric parameters of the site a) solar radiation data b) ambient temperature it can also be noted that the location has a high solar radiation intensity, reaching 250 kwh/m2 in july, one of the highest potentials in the world, with an average ambient temperature of 18ºc. the temperature of cold water is an interesting parameter to determine the performance of the solar system. the monthly average ambient air and network water temperature provided by the software are shown in figure 4 for a period of one year. the ambient temperature varies between 10 °c and 25 °c and average annual cold water temperature is about 18 °c. these values are the same of those provided by the algerian water company (ministry of water resources and water security, algerian waters, 2021). this means that the data provided by the software is accurate. the difference between summer and winter is significant. it can be seen that the temperature of cold water is 15°c in winter and reaches 25°c in summer, a difference of 10°c between these two periods, which affects strongly the system performance (software meteonorm 8. 2022). table 1 conditions of parameters during testing measurement parameters test conditions angle of incidence (θ) (°) -55° to +55° total radiation on tilted surface ig (w/m2) 840