Technology Readiness Level Assessment Research Articles

Technology readiness level assessment of carbon capture and storage technologies

The global energy sector has experienced significant expansion in recent years, driven by rising demand and technological advancements. This growth has led to both opportunities and challenges, including global warming and the need to offset global carbon emissions. A wide range of technological maturity characterizes the current state of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. To efficiently navigate and accelerate the implementation of these solutions, conducting an in-depth assessment of various CCS technologies is necessary. In the literature, maturity assessment-based study of CCS technologies exists only using expert surveys. This study aimed to conduct a technology readiness level (TRL) assessment of CCS technologies with the help of a multi-faceted approach comprising a literature review, technology identification, data collection, TRL mapping, expert survey, and comparative analysis. To achieve this, 79 CCS projects from the literature were analyzed to identify growing trends in the CCS industry. The analysis shows that both pre-combustion and post-combustion capture are mature technologies achieving TRL 9, while oxy-fuel capture is ranked at TRL 7. Similarly, carbon storage technologies achieved high ranking, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and storage in saline aquifers are fully commercial and ranked at TRL 9. Enhanced coal bed methane (ECBM) extraction is trailing at TRL 3 in the research phase. In addition, a total of 21 experts were surveyed, and their statements corroborate the conclusions of the literature review. The research concludes that post-combustion capture and EOR are the most popular CCS technologies, respectively.

Compiling life cycle inventories for wastewater-derived products

With the paradigm shift in wastewater management from pollutant removal to resource recovery, more wastewater-derived products are emerging from different recovery pathways. It is becoming increasingly important to understand the potential environmental impacts of these products through life cycle assessment (LCA). This study aims to compile life cycle inventories of wastewater-derived products from the perspective of the product end users (e.g., agricultural sector, packaging industry), and to explore the challenges of their compilation. Using inventories from wastewater resource recovery LCA literature, we compiled an attributional inventory (88 sets) and a consequential inventory (33 sets) of three categories of wastewater-derived products – phosphorus compounds, nitrogen compounds, and biopolymers. The two inventories differ by the choices of system boundary, how foreground systems are being modelled, and how co-products are being handled. We found that while there is a large body of literature related to wastewater resource recovery LCA, very few studies (29 out of 174 for the three categories of products) are suitable for end users to successfully compile inventories of derived products. The inventories were assessed by the technology readiness level assessment, the data quality assessment, and the cumulative energy demand indicator. The inventories can be used directly by end users or served as “screening” inventories for end users to prioritize data collection effort. The identified challenges of inventory compilation include diverse recovery settings, the absence of baseline scenarios, the multifunctional nature of wastewater treatment plants, the lack of inventory transparency and completeness, and low technology readiness level for some recovery pathways. While established or emerging approaches exist to address most of these challenges for end users, wastewater resource recovery LCA practitioners can enhance their assessments to be more end-user-oriented. This can be achieved by including baseline non-recovery scenarios, disclosing detailed life cycle inventory by system components, and assessing a wide variety of operating scenarios. Addressing some of these compilation challenges would enhance the comprehensiveness and quality of wastewater-derived product inventories.

Technology readiness: A global snapshot of 3D concrete printing and the frontiers for development

Since the inception of 3D concrete printing (3DCP) in the early to mid-2000's, the commercial landscape for this technology has expanded rapidly in parallel with developments of relevant materials, production technologies and knowhow. To benchmark the state-of-the-art of 3DCP technology in the construction field, this study presents a systematic review and analysis of 3DCP's development and applications based on information from articles, patents and publicly available data. An estimation of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) for 3DCP has been formulated through expert review, and the evidence suggests this is in the region of TRL6-7 similar to that reported for polymer-based fused deposition modelling processes. A new schema for the TRL assessment process is suggested and applied to two case studies: 1) the production of decorative works; 2) the fabrication of dwellings. Finally, we have identified four frontiers for research and development that should be exploited to raise the TRL of 3DCP.

Cost and technology readiness level assessment of emerging technologies, new perspectives, and future research directions in H2 production

This review provides a cost and technology readiness level assessment of emerging technologies in H2 production and overview of future research directions.

Technology Readiness Level Assessment of Formalin Production Pathways

Formalin is among the highest production volume chemicals and can be obtained by several production pathways, though there are several potential production pathways in earlier development stages. To evaluate the maturity level of formalin production technologies, assessment is performed according to Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). TRL is a method used to describe the maturity of technologies, and assign them a TRL level or a range of levels from 1 to 9, with TRL 9 indicating the most mature technologic systems. Formalin is most synthesized from methanol produced via syngas which is obtained by steam reforming of natural gas. Other production pathways are formalin produced from biogas, through gasification of biomass, coal, black liquor and other, through methanol produced by direct hydrogenation of CO2 or via reverse water gas shift reaction, also known as the CAMERE process. Finally, emerging technologies such as direct conversion of methane, syngas or CO2 to formalin were considered. This work will contribute to a wider understanding of the various technologies used in the formalin production field.

Application of technology readiness level assessment model in realization of innovative scientific and technological projects

At present, innovative activity is becoming more and more significant, and is a vital factor of maintaining economic growth of the country. When realizing innovative scientific and technological projects it is possible to make well-grounded managerial decisions basing on the performance indicators within the technology readiness level (TRL) assessment model. The authors study the TRL assessment model and present a set of performance indicators of similar Russian TRL model. On the example of monitoring of suggested performance indicators of the eighth technology readiness level the authors reveal the factor producing the most serious impact on one of the factors (profitability of production) and present an option for solving the problem, and a neuron network has been trained to control the indicator. The results obtained have revealed the possibility of adapting the TRL scale for the needs of high technology businesses which implement technological development programs. The results can be used in realization of innovative scientific and technological projects to reduce the costs at different life cycle stages and to increase the efficiency of the managerial decisions taken.

Technology readiness level assessment on ship-borne laser weapon system

Technology readiness level assessment on ship-borne laser weapon system

Laser metrology concept consolidation for NGGM

The measurement of the static and temporal variation of Earth’s gravity field yields important information on water storage, seasonal and sub-seasonal water cycles, their impact on water levels and delivers key data to Earth’s climate models. The satellite missions GOCE (ESA), GRACE (US-GER) and just recently GRACE Follow-On (US-GER) resulted in a significant improvement on our understanding of the system Earth. To further improve the measurement accuracy of the time-variable gravity field, ESA is investigating the concept of a ‘Next Generation Gravity Mission’ (NGGM), consisting of two pairs of satellites and a heterodyne laser interferometer for inter-satellite ranging. Based on the heritage of the development of the laser ranging interferometer for GRACE Follow-On and the former and ongoing studies for NGGM, two schemes for the Laser Metrology Instrument (LMI) for NGGM, namely the transponder and the retroreflector scheme have been investigated and are presented in this paper. The results include the instrument ranging performance analyses, the laser link acquisition, an instrument reliability assessment and redundancy approach as well as the Technology Readiness Level assessment of the individual instrument units.

Technology Readiness Level Assignment to Industrial Plant System Life Cycle

During the industrial plant system life cycle, required technologies are developed and assessed to analyze their performance, risks and costs. The assessment is called technology readiness assessment (TRA) and the measure of readiness is called technology readiness level (TRL). The TRL consists of 9 levels and through the TRL assessment, the technology to be developed and its components are assigned to their appropriate TRL. TRL assessment should be performed in each life cycle stages to monitor the technology readiness and analyze the potential risks and costs. However, even though the concept of TRL has been largely adopted by numerous organizations and industry, direct and clear assignment of target TRL for each life cycle stage has been overlooked. Direct mapping/assignment of target TRL for each life cycle has benefits as follow: (1) the technical risks condition of each life cycle stage can be better understood, (2) cost incurred if the technology development is failed can be analyzed in each life cycle stage, and (3) more effective decision making because the technology readiness achievement for each life cycle stages is agreed beforehand. In this paper, we propose a steel-making plant system life cycle and TRL assignment to each of the system life cycle stage. By directly assigning target TRL for each life cycle stages, we look forward to a more coordinated (in terms of exit criteria) and highly effective (in terms of technical risks identification and eventually prevent project failure) technology development and assessment processes.

Technology readiness level assessment of composites recycling technologies

Composite materials made of glass and carbon fibres have revolutionised many industries. Demand for composites is experiencing rapid growth and global demand is expected to double. As demand for composites grows it is clear that waste management will become an important issue for businesses. Technically composite materials evoke difficult recycling challenges due to the heterogeneity of their composition. As current waste management practices in composites are dominated by landfilling, governments and businesses themselves foresee that this will need to change in the future. The recycling of composites will play a vital role in the future especially for the aerospace, automotive, construction and marine sectors. These industries will require different recycling options for their products based on compliance with current legislation, the business model as well as cost effectiveness. In order to be able to evaluate waste management strategies for composites, a review of recycling technologies has been conducted based on technology readiness levels and waste management hierarchy. This paper analyses 56 research projects to identify growing trends in composite recycling technologies with pyrolysis, solvolysis and mechanical grinding as the most prominent technologies. These recycling technologies attained high scores on the waste management hierarchy (either recycling or reuse applications) suggesting potential development as future viable alternatives to composite landfilling. The research concluded that recycling as a waste management strategy is most popular exploration area. It was found mechanical grinding to be most mature for glass fibre applications while pyrolysis has been most mature in the context of carbon fibre. The paper also highlights the need to understand the use of reclaimed material as important assessment element of recycling efforts. This paper contributes to the widening and systematising knowledge on maturity and understanding composites recycling technologies.