Abstract
In this study, a directly irradiated, milli-scale chemical reactor with a simple nickel catalyst was designed for dry reforming of methane for syngas. A milli-scale reactor was used to facilitate rapid heating, which is conducive to combating thermal transience caused by intermittent solar energy, as well as reducing startup times. Milli-scale reactors also allow for a distributed and modular process to produce chemicals on a more local scale. In this setup, the catalyst involved in the reaction is located directly in the focal area of the solar simulator, resulting in rapid heating. The effects of mean residence time and temperature on conversion and energy efficiency were tested. The process, which is intended to store thermal energy as chemical enthalpy, achieved 10% thermal-to-chemical energy conversion efficiency at a mean residence time of 0.028 s, temperature of 1000 °C, and molar feed ratio of 1:1 CO2:CH4. A significant portion of the thermal energy input into the reactor was directed toward sensible heating of the feed gas. Thus, this technology has potential to achieve solar-to-chemical efficiency with the integration of recuperative heat exchange.
Highlights
Development of a practical, long-term energy storage may be the greatest roadblock to utilization of renewable, yet intermittent energy sources, like wind and solar, in the industrial and transportation sectors
An 80 wt % Ni content porous pellet was synthesized to serve as the catalyst
By being highly reactive, it limited the amount of inert mass which consumed thermal energy from the solar simulator
Summary
Development of a practical, long-term energy storage may be the greatest roadblock to utilization of renewable, yet intermittent energy sources, like wind and solar, in the industrial and transportation sectors. In order to foster a sustainable and robust energy future, it is important to develop an efficient method to convert solar energy into liquid fuels or higher value chemicals. Dry reforming of methane (DRM, Equation (1)) is a highly endothermic reaction that can store solar thermal energy, but it is a method to reform natural gas into CO and H2 (syngas) for use in various industrial processes such as Fischer-Tropsch synthesis—a process that can be used to synthesize long-chain hydrocarbons such as diesel, gasoline, or jet fuel from syngas [1,2,3]. If the DRM reaction is driven by non-fossil-based energy, this would translate to a 30% reduction in fossil carbon emissions from transportation and industries that consume syngas-derived products
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