A pressurized high-flux solar reactor for the efficient thermochemical gasification of carbonaceous feedstock

Abstract

We report on the design and first-ever experimental demonstration of a 3 kW pressurized solar reactor for thermochemically converting carbonaceous feedstocks into gaseous fuels. It uses a windowless SiC cavity to efficiently absorb and transfer concentrated solar radiation to an annular gas-particle vortex flow created by injecting tangentially a charcoal/water slurry at high pressures. Experiments were carried out in a high-flux solar simulator under a solar concentration ratio equivalent to 3718 suns. For slurry feeding rates in the range 0.42-1.26 g/min, H 2 O:C molar ratios in the range 1.48-1.98, and absolute reactor pressures in the range 1-6 bar, the nominal reactor temperature was between 1009 and 1273 °C yielding high-quality syngas with a carbon conversion up to 94% within residence times of less than 5

Solar pyrolysis of cotton stalk in molten salt for bio-fuel production

“…What's more, they can present significant advantages in terms of size, cost and operational flexibility [26]. They are very important and valuable for fast and cost-effective indoor laboratory in certain research fields, such as the pyrolysis [27] and gasification [28] of carbonaceous feedstock.…”

A simple solar simulator with highly stable controlled irradiance for solar panel characterization

“…[2][3][4][5] Another group of solar simulators with highflux concentrators are operated in producing high temperatures for research in materials processing, thermochemical reactions, solar fuels production, and simulated solar thermal power generation. [6][7][8][9][10] Solar cells along with batteries and power managements were used to supply electrical power for various monitoring systems, such as natural disaster monitoring systems, [11][12][13][14][15] structure health monitoring, 16 aquaculture monitoring, 17 and underground mining area monitoring, 18 which is placed in remote or inaccessible areas. Tests of solar cells along with their batteries and power managements using a non-concentrating uniformly distributed solar simulator are therefore very important to make sure the continuous power supply to the monitoring systems.…”

Design and demonstration of a prototype 1.5 kWth hybrid solar/autothermal steam gasifier

“…Previous indirectly-irradiated designs have implemented absorbing/ emitting tubes [7][8][9][10][11][12], plates [13][14][15], or cylindrical cavities [16,17] to transfer heat to reactants. SiC is commonly used as an absorbing material due to its favorable properties: high emissivity, high thermal conductivity, inertness at high temperatures, and low coefficient of thermal expansion.…”

“…Prominent solar-driven gasifier designs that have been examined in literature have employed entrained flow [11,16,18], drop tubes [7,8,10], packed beds [15,19,20], and fluidized beds [12,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. Entrained-flow and drop-tube gasifiers generally have very short residence times while benefiting from enhanced heat and mass transfer.…”

“…Entrained-flow and drop-tube gasifiers generally have very short residence times while benefiting from enhanced heat and mass transfer. A few studies have been able to achieve high carbon conversions despite these limitations [7,16,18]. Packed beds are able to handle a wide variety of feedstocks and particle sizes with long residence times, but face challenges with heat and mass transport.…”