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In this study, a directly irradiated, milli-scale chemical reactor with a simple nickel catalyst was designed for dry reforming of methane for syngas. A milli-scale reactor was used to facilitate rapid heating, which is conducive to combating thermal transience caused by intermittent solar energy, as well as reducing startup times. Milli-scale reactors also allow for a distributed and modular process to produce chemicals on a more local scale. In this setup, the catalyst involved in the reaction is located directly in the focal area of the solar simulator, resulting in rapid heating. The effects of mean residence time and temperature on conversion and energy efficiency were tested. The process, which is intended to store thermal energy as chemical enthalpy, achieved 10% thermal-to-chemical energy conversion efficiency at a mean residence time of 0.028 s, temperature of 1000 °C, and molar feed ratio of 1:1 CO2:CH4. A significant portion of the thermal energy input into the reactor was directed toward sensible heating of the feed gas. Thus, this technology has potential to achieve solar-to-chemical efficiency with the integration of recuperative heat exchange.

The optimal dimensions of square channel reactor are basically information when microreactor will be assigned. To obtain good geometries of channel reactors, general mathematic models for optimum length prediction should be developed before performing details design and optimization. In this context, analytical models for the square channel of monolith reactor were presented. The models were developed following the work done by Francois Mathieu-Potvin and Louis Gosselin in order to predict an optimal length of the square channel of monolith reactor resulting in the maximum reaction rate. The models were constructed based on fully developed laminar flow, isothermal and gas phase system. The steam methane reforming reaction was used as a case study for estimation of the reactor length. The results obtained from this analytical technique had been compared with that obtained by Computational Fluid Dynamic using FEM software (COMSOL Multiphysic version 3.5a) and experimental works.