Multi-injection downdraft moving bed reactor for hydrolysis in thermochemical hydrogen production

Abstract

This paper investigates a downdraft multi-injection moving bed reactor (MBR) for the hydrolysis reaction in the copper-chlorine (Cu–Cl) thermochemical cycle for hydrogen production. The numerical modelling is conducted for a variety of system configurations of the MBR, with a focus on reducing the energy requirement of the reactor while achieving high conversion rates. Several design variables are investigated, including reactor volume, injection point location, and quantity of steam injection. The numerical predictions show an approximate 23% increase in CuCl2 conversion for the multi-injection MBR compared to a single injection design. A maximum conversion of 66.5% is predicted through design parameter variations. Asymptotic behavior for the quantity of injection locations with respect to conversion extent is presented for several different steam to copper ratios. The results and new insights in this paper suggest opportunities for conversion improvement and steam to copper ratio reduction in the hydrolysis reactor through the MBR design.