Experimental and numerical investigation of the aperture size effect on the efficient solar energy harvesting for solar thermochemical applications

Sarwar, Jawad; Georgakis, G.; Kouloulias, K.; Kakosimos, Konstantinos

doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2014.12.065

Cited by 26 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Inefficiency of the power tower designs, which reemitted maximally 60 MW of radiation back to the environment, owed their exposed receivers. Conversely the cavity beam-down configuration, which approaches a blackbody as aspect ratio exceeds 4:1 [50,[59][60][61], reemitted maximally 4.5 MW of radiation. These results are summarized in Figure 7.…”

Section: Solar Reactor Screening and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reversible Molten Catalytic Methane Cracking Applied to Commercial Solar-Thermal Receivers

et al. 2020

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When driven by sunlight, molten catalytic methane cracking can produce clean hydrogen fuel from natural gas without greenhouse emissions. To design solar methane crackers, a canonical plug flow reactor model was developed that spanned industrially relevant temperatures and pressures (1150–1350 Kelvin and 2–200 atmospheres). This model was then validated against published methane cracking data and used to screen power tower and beam-down reactor designs based on “Solar Two,” a renewables technology demonstrator from the 1990s. Overall, catalytic molten methane cracking is likely feasible in commercial beam-down solar reactors, but not power towers. The best beam-down reactor design was 9% efficient in the capture of sunlight as fungible hydrogen fuel, which approaches photovoltaic efficiencies. Conversely, the best discovered tower methane cracker was only 1.7% efficient. Thus, a beam-down reactor is likely tractable for solar methane cracking, whereas power tower configurations appear infeasible. However, the best simulated commercial reactors were heat transfer limited, not reaction limited. Efficiencies could be higher if heat bottlenecks are removed from solar methane cracker designs. This work sets benchmark conditions and performance for future solar reactor improvement via design innovation and multiphysics simulation.

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Section: Solar Reactor Screening and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reversible Molten Catalytic Methane Cracking Applied to Commercial Solar-Thermal Receivers

et al. 2020

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“…The use of solar energy for electricity production promises to be one of the most viable options to replace fossil fuel power plants [9][10][11]. The concentrated solar power (CSP) system that focuses solar radiation energy onto the receiver can reduce the requirement of collector materials and provide lower heat losses due to the reduced target area [12][13][14]. The parabolic trough collector (PTC), as a CSP technology that has been extremely developed, has already had relatively abundant operational experience, and currently has great prospects [15,16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of heat transfer performance of the absorber tube with convergent-divergent structure for parabolic trough collector

XUYI

Wang

XUHANG

et al. 2021

Journal of Thermal Engineering

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In order to effectually improve the performance of parabolic trough solar collector system and homogenize the temperature distribution on the absorber tube, an innovative convergentdivergent tube was designed as the absorber tube of PTR. The finite volume method (FVM) and the Monte Carlo ray tracing method (MCRT) are combined to simulate the heat transfer process in parabolic trough collector. The average relative error between the numerical results and the experimental results conducted in the Spanish DISS test facility is 1.103%, which confirms the reliability of the simulation results in this paper. The heat transfer characteristics and flow characteristics of PTR and convergent-divergent PTR are compared in the inlet velocity range of 0.05-0.75m/s, and the effect of the number of zoom sections(N) for CD-PTR performance is also studied. The simulation results show that the parabolic trough collector with convergent-divergent tube has significantly enhanced heat transfer capability. The average Nu of CD-PTR increases as the number of zoom sections increases, and is always higher than that of PTR. When Re=86400 and N=25, the average Nu increased by 66%.

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Effects of critical geometric parameters on the optical performance of a conical cavity receiver

Zhang

et al. 2019

Front. Energy

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Experimental and numerical investigation of the aperture size effect on the efficient solar energy harvesting for solar thermochemical applications

Cited by 26 publications

References 30 publications

Reversible Molten Catalytic Methane Cracking Applied to Commercial Solar-Thermal Receivers

Reversible Molten Catalytic Methane Cracking Applied to Commercial Solar-Thermal Receivers

Analysis of heat transfer performance of the absorber tube with convergent-divergent structure for parabolic trough collector

Effects of critical geometric parameters on the optical performance of a conical cavity receiver

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