Solar carbothermal reduction of aerosolized ZnO particles under vacuum: Modeling, experimentation, and characterization of a drop-tube reactor

Abstract

A vacuum aerosol particle reactor was tested for the carbothermal reduction of zinc oxide using concentrated solar power as a heat source. A steady state reactor model was developed to investigate the effect of pressure dependent particle residence time and radiative input power on the zinc production rate. Radiative heat transfer to the particle cloud is solved by Monte Carlo ray tracing, accounting for spectral and directional optical properties and temperature dependent chemical kinetics. Experiments with the solar drop-tube reactor were conducted to ascertain the reaction capacity of the system at pressures between 1 and 960mbar by varying the reactant feed rate between 4 and 56g·min−1. Experiments show that the zinc production rate is maximal at around 100mbar and significantly diminishes under high vacuum. Model and experimental results indicate that the reaction at 1mbar is inhibited due to insufficient residence time and heat up of the particles in the reaction zone. Maximum experimental zinc production rate was 51.4mmol·min−1, while feeding 56g·min−1 of solid reactants and operating the reactor at 100mbar with 9.8kW of radiative input power. Extrapolation to higher feed rates with the reactor model predicts a peak zinc production capacity of 52.1mmol·min−1 at a feed rate of 68g·min−1, achieving a net thermal efficiency of 3.2%.