Unfortunately, I was not able to be present in our first Brainstorming session as a group, however after class I talked to my groupmates and we discuss what they had come up during class for our final project. For the project we discussed the following three (3) ideas to be developed as out final experiment:
- Chemical Energy (Animal Waste)
- Thermal Energy ( Inflate Balloon with bottle in water)
- Hydro Energy (Waterwheel Electrically)
Along this blog, I will discuss in brief what each of these three (3) options consist off, and further along during the time in class, we will select one to develop in-depth as our final experiment.
- Chemical Energy ( Animal Waste)
What’s Biomass?
Biomass fuels come from things that once lived: wood products, dried vegetation, crop residues, aquatic plants and even garbage. It is known as “natural materials”. Plants used up a lot of the sun’s energy to make their own food (photosynthesis). They stored the food in the plants in the form of chemical energy. As the plants died, the energy is trapped in the residue. This trapped energy is usually released by burning and can be converted into biomass energy.
How is biomass converted into energy?
Energy from the sun is transferred and stored in plants. When the plants are cut or die, wood chips, straw, and another plant matter is delivered to the bunker
-This is burned to heat water in a boiler to release heat energy (steam).
-The energy/power from the steam is directed to turbines with pipes
-The steam turns a number of blades in the turbine and generators, which are made of coils and magnets.
2. Thermal Energy ( Inflate Balloon with bottle in water)
The matter is made up of particles or molecules. These molecules move constantly. A rise of temperature of matter makes the particles vibrate faster. Thermal energy is what we call energy that comes from the temperature of matter. The hotter the substance, the more its molecules vibrate, and, therefore, the higher it’s thermal energy.
The picture below shows an example of this process “If we want to boil the water in these two beakers, we must increase their temperatures to 100°C. You will notice that will take longer to boil the water in the large beaker than the water in the small beaker. This is because the large beaker contains more water and needs more heat energy to reach 100°C.”
The matter is made up of particles or molecules. These molecules move constantly. A rise of temperature of matter makes the particles vibrate faster. Thermal energy is what we call energy that comes from the temperature of matter. The hotter the substance, the more its molecules vibrate, and, therefore, the higher it’s thermal energy.
The picture below shows an example of this process “If we want to boil the water in these two beakers, we must increase their temperatures to 100°C. You will notice that will take longer to boil the water in the large beaker than the water in the small beaker. This is because the large beaker contains more water and needs more heat energy to reach 100°C.
3.Hydro Energy (Waterwheel Electrically)
This process works by using water to power machinery or make electricity. Water constantly moves through a vast global cycle, evaporating from lakes and oceans, forming clouds, precipitating as rain or snow, and then flowing back down to the ocean. The energy of this water cycle, which is driven by the sun, can be tapped to produce electricity or for mechanical tasks like grinding grain
The picture below shows how this process works:
From these three options, we will select one that would best work for our final experiment and then develop it.