Review of Heat Transfer Research for Solar Thermochemical Applications

Abstract

This article reviews the progress, challenges and opportunities in heat transfer research as applied to high-temperature thermochemical systems that use high-flux solar irradiation as the source of process heat. Selected pertinent areas such as radiative spectroscopy and tomography-based heat and mass characterization of heterogeneous media, kinetics of high-temperature heterogeneous reactions, heat and mass transfer modeling of solar thermochemical systems, and thermal measurements in high-temperature systems are presented, with brief discussions of their methods and example results from selected applications.

Modeling of Concurrent CO2and Water Splitting by Practical Photoelectrochemical Devices

“…At the same time, the catalysts investigated show reasonable stability in theses electrolytes. The ion conductivity of the various electrolytes was 16.45 S/m for 1M NaOH, 19.86 S/m for 1M KOH, and 0.86 S/m for 0.1M KHCO 3 . The conductivity of the wet Nafion membrane was 10 S/m.…”

“…Our model provides insights and practical considerations for the design and implementation of a PEC device for the concurrent production of hydrogen and CO. Solar liquid fuel production can potentially be achieved by the reduction of water and CO 2 through two non-biological pathways: [1][2][3][4] i) solar thermochemical (STC) approaches, and ii) photoelectrochemical (PEC) approaches. In both cases, water and CO 2 is split into hydrogen and CO (a mixture called synthesis gas) and, for PEC approaches only, other lower order hydrocarbon products.…”

“…17 reduced CO 2 to methanol in 0.5 M potassium bicarbonate (KHCO 3 ) utilizing different copper oxides, namely air-oxidized copper, anodized copper, and cuprous oxide thin film electrodes. The results suggested that CH 3 OH production may be associated with Cu(I) surface species which appeared to be reduced as CH 3 OH was produced. The results also showed that Cu(I) sites promoted catalytic activity and selectivity.…”

Modelling of solar thermochemical reaction systems

“…This paper aims to provide a review of the research area of numerical modelling of STRSs, outline the challenges unique to high-temperature STRS modelling, highlight the existing literature in the field and their attempts to overcome these hurdles, and guide the reader to relevant studies related to different material/-chemical processes and physical reactor configurations. The reader is also referred to the recent reviews of the areas of heat transfer within STRSs and experimental studies of them by Lipiń ski et al (2013) and Alonso and Romero (2015), respectively. Fig.…”

Radiative characterization of random fibrous media with long cylindrical fibers: Comparison of single- and multi-RTE approaches

“…The determination of the apparent radiative properties of dispersed media based on media morphology and composition becomes crucial to the accuracy of this approach. This topic has continuously attracted interest from the radiative transfer community due to its large variety of applications such as solar energy conversion [3][4][5] , nuclear technologies [6] , snow physics [7] , and medical applications [8] . The reviews of Viskanta and Mengüç [9] , Baillis and Sacadura [10] , and Bail-lis et al [11] present the theoretical approaches and experimental methodologies for the characterization of spectral, directional apparent radiative properties of particulate and realistic disperse media, such as foams, fibrous materials, various ceramics, polymer coatings containing microspheres, and aerogel super-insulations.…”