Analysis of methanol thermochemical reactor with volumetric solar heat flux based on Parabolic Trough Concentrator

Abstract

This paper aimed to perform a numerical study on a solar thermochemical reactor with Parabolic Trough Concentrator (PTC) for Methanol Steam Reforming (MSR) while taking into account the impacts of Cu nanoparticles. The optical analysis was initially performed by considering the volumetric heat flux with various irradiation and nanoparticle volume fractions. The reactor performance was then optimized by changing a few parameters, including the volumetric solar heat flux, the percentage of nanoparticles, and the inlet temperature. The present work also investigated the species concentration, temperature distribution, reaction rate along the reactor, and selectivity of hydrogen regarding the stated parameters. The numerical solution was obtained based on the finite element analysis and the direct MUMPS algorithm by the LU factorization method. The heat flux from the concentrator and reaction rate of the MSR reactor was validated, and the results were consistent with the literature exhibiting the minimum and maximum error values of 3.3% and 13.2%, respectively. The analysis revealed that the reactor efficiency decreases as the volumetric heat flux increases, which was relative to the variation of nanoparticle volume fraction. On the other hand, increasing the nanoparticle volume fraction increased the reactor efficiency at constant volumetric heat flux. The reactor efficiency was shown to be equal to 46.3% in the optimal state, which was relative to the heat flux of 4500 (W/m2), the nanoparticle volume fraction of 2%, and the solar irradiation range of 420–580 (W/m2).