Dynamic behavior of solar thermochemical reactors for fuel generation: Modeling and control strategies

Huang，Haodong1,2; Lin，Meng1,2

2022-10-15

10.1016/j.enconman.2022.116232

ENERGY CONVERSION AND MANAGEMENT   Impact Factor & Quartile

0196-8904

1879-2227

Solar thermochemical water splitting provides an efficient route for converting solar energy into renewable fuels. The operation of solar thermochemical reactor under real on-sun condition requires in-depth understanding of its dynamic behaivor under fluctuating direct normal irradiation (DNI). In this work, we developed a 2D axial-symmetric multi-physical model to assess the reactor's dynamic behavior with three oxygen removing technologies electrochemical oxygen pump (EOP), sweep gas (SG), and vacuum pump (VP), under varying solar irradiations. To alleviate the negative effect of decreased DNI, two control strategies (CS) including varying operational conditions for oxygen removing technologies (CS1) and replacing the reduction step with the oxidation step (CS2) were conducted. We found that CS1 was only effective when DNI reduction was larger than 75 % over the whole reduction step (case 2). In general, CS2 can be implemented to alleviate the efficiency decrease for all DNI variations expect for the case 2 in this study. Especially, CS2 significantly increased the solar-to-fuel efficiency compared to the case without control strategy for the reduced DNI from 1000 W/m to 500 W/m during the whole reduction step. The reactor dynamic behavior in response to the daily DNI variations is also reported which shows that the efficiency profiles are highly in line with the DNI profile. This modeling work as well as proposed control strategies can be used to guide the design and control of solar thermochemical reactors under realistic conditions and hence for better assessing the performance of the reactor in practice.

SCI

English

First ; Corresponding

National Natural Science Foundation of China[52006097, the Shenzhen Science];National Natural Science Foundation of China[Technology Innovation Commission under Grant No. GJHZ20210705141808026];

Thermodynamics ; Energy & Fuels ; Mechanics

Thermodynamics ; Energy & Fuels ; Mechanics

WOS:000870466300004

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

ENGINEERING

2-s2.0-85139035892

Scopus

1.Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering,Southern University of Science and Technology,Shenzhen,518055,China
2.SUSTech Energy Institute for Carbon Neutrality,Southern University of Science and Technology,Shenzhen,518055,China

Huang，Haodong,Lin，Meng. Dynamic behavior of solar thermochemical reactors for fuel generation: Modeling and control strategies[J]. ENERGY CONVERSION AND MANAGEMENT,2022,270.

Huang，Haodong,&Lin，Meng.(2022).Dynamic behavior of solar thermochemical reactors for fuel generation: Modeling and control strategies.ENERGY CONVERSION AND MANAGEMENT,270.

Huang，Haodong,et al."Dynamic behavior of solar thermochemical reactors for fuel generation: Modeling and control strategies".ENERGY CONVERSION AND MANAGEMENT 270(2022).