Advanced energy research of College of Engineering at National Tsing Hua University

The advanced energy research is vital on national strategic level of Taiwan and pursued by College of Engineering of National Tsing Hua University, top tier higher education and research institution in the country. The current paper introduces the major research in this regard and crowned by the grant of National Energy Project recently approved. The solar and wind energy are adopted for the innovative “Air Power City” utilizing compressed air energy of zero-emission to substitute the common petrochemical energy from gasoline. Wind turbines and sterling engines are examined to convert the wind power and solar power to mechanical energy. For solar energy, film deposit by sputtering with a quaternary CIGS compound target is studied to meet the requirement for mass production, large deposition area and high throughput for commercial purposes. A vertical type of small wind turbine blades integrates the specialties to develop key components of composite material wind turbine as well as the high performance converter. The effective system integration is explored to reduce the overall cost and enhance performance. The next-generation electrochemical supercapacitors more advanced than the EDLCs in both energy and power densities are being developed utilizing double-layer and faradaic capacitances. Enhancement of energy efficiency by recycling energy waste is often practiced for the high-temperature industrial waste heat, while the low-temperature waste heat is hardly reused but dumped into the environment. Thermoelectric generator (TEG) converts heat into electricity when a temperature difference exists across the TEG module, and is considered perfectly suitable for low-temperature waste heat harvesting. A prototype generating 300 watts at 12 volts with a temperature difference of 150 °C will be demonstrated. Finally, the CO2 reduction is endeavored including the capture by chemical absorption, physical adsorption, chemical looping process, and conversion of CO2 into energy products.