Evaluation of the Pavement Geothermal Energy Harvesting Technologies towards Sustainability and Renewable Energy

Abstract

Continually using fossil fuels as the main source for producing electricity is one of the main factors causing global warming. Through the past years, several efforts have been made, looking for sustainable, environmentally friendly, and clean energy alternatives. Harvesting geothermal energy from roadway pavement is one of the alternatives that have been developed and investigated recently. Herein, a systematic review and bibliometric analysis were conducted to provide a comprehensive overview of the potentials of harvesting thermal energy from asphalt pavement and to assess the level of achievement being attained towards developed technologies. A total of 713 articles were initially collected, considering the period between 2006 and 2021; later, a series of filtration processes were performed to reach 47 publications. The thermal energy harvesting technologies were categorized into three main sectors, at which their basics and principles were discussed. In addition, a detailed description of the systems’ configurations, materials, and efficiency was presented and described. Finally, gaps and future directions were summarized at the end of this paper. The fundamental knowledge introduced herein can inspire researchers to detect research gaps and serve as a wake-up call to motivate them to explore the high potentials of utilizing pavements as a clean and sustainable energy source.

Sustainability of renewable energy production: empirical evidence from developing and middle-income countries

“…The study concluded by urging countries to work toward sustainable development by intensifying renewable energy production and consumption. Al-Qadami et al (2022) examined Pavement Geothermal Energy Harvesting Technologies (PGEHT) needed for sustainable renewable energy production. The study used systematic review with emphasis on harvesting thermal energy production for the analysis.…”

“…According to European Union (EU), the use of battery electric vehicles (BEV) in 2022 recorded 12.1% of the market share as against 9.1% in 2021 among European countries (EU, 2022). These countries are also working on emerging technologies that will help to absorb existing carbon dioxide emission from the atmosphere, which is popularly known as carbon sequestration (Al-Qadami et al , 2022; Botelho et al , 2016; Troldborg et al , 2014).…”

Structural behavior of the geothermo-electrical asphalt pavement: A critical review concerning climate change

“…Moreover, the implementation and design of GHEs extremely depend on the geometry of the underground structures and site layout. In addition to the extra stresses that could be imposed on the structural element due to the transferred thermal loads, which must be carefully considered during the design phase (Abdelaziz et al., 2011 [ 71 ]; Al-Qadami et al., 2022 [ 72 ]). Due to these limitations, it can be more difficult to design geothermal systems that can fulfill the required thermal loads.…”

Kresling origami-inspired electromagnetic energy harvester with reversible nonlinearity

“…In recent years, researchers have proposed delicate energy harvesters to harness renewable energies from the environment (e.g. geothermal [1], solar [2] and tidal energies [3]) to reduce the usage of fossil energy. Ubiquitous vibrational energy [4][5][6] has great potential as the sustainable energy source for lowpower electronics [7].…”