Issue 18/2016 - Progress in the production of fuel gas by solar thermochemical cycle

Recently, the Laboratory of Distributed Energy Supply and Renewable Energy of the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences has discovered a method to recover waste heat and unreacted gases (such as H2O or CO2) downstream of isothermal thermochemical cycle reactors by using the endothermic reaction of fossil fuels (such as CH4), and proposed a solar thermochemical polygeneration system
based on methane reforming.

Researchers have studied direct heat exchange instead of heat exchangers, and proposed a method
to recover waste heat and unreacted gases (such as H2O or CO2) downstream of isothermal chemical reactors by using endothermic reactions of fossil fuels (such as CH4).
The temperature of the mixed gas after the isothermal oxidation reaction can be reduced to 600~850 °C and the calorific value of the mixed gas can be increased
.
In addition, the integration of fossil fuels downstream of the reactor can further increase syngas production and the use of solar energy
.
Due to the incorporation of upstream isothermal thermochemical cycle reactions, this new method has the advantage of
producing calorific value fuels with low carbon emissions.
On this basis, researchers proposed a methanol-powered multigeneration system based on methane reforming, which further proved the advantages of
chemical heat recovery.
The solar-to-syngas conversion efficiencies of the new system are 45.
7% and 38.
1%,
respectively.
The simultaneous decomposition of CO2 and H2O combined with methane reforming can obtain a tunable CO/H2 ratio to meet different chemical synthesis processes
.

This work is supported by the Young Thousand Talents Program and the Innovation Cross Team Project, which has been published
in the international journal Applied Thermal Engineering.