Materials-Related Aspects of Thermochemical Water and Carbon Dioxide Splitting: A Review

Abstract

Thermochemical multistep water- and CO2-splitting processes are promising options to face future energy problems. Particularly, the possible incorporation of solar power makes these processes sustainable and environmentally attractive since only water, CO2 and solar power are used; the concentrated solar energy is converted into storable and transportable fuels. One of the major barriers to technological success is the identification of suitable active materials like catalysts and redox materials exhibiting satisfactory durability, reactivity and efficiencies. Moreover, materials play an important role in the construction of key components and for the implementation in commercial solar plants. The most promising thermochemical water- and CO2-splitting processes are being described and discussed with respect to further development and future potential. The main materials-related challenges of those processes are being analyzed. Technical approaches and development progress in terms of solving them are addressed and assessed in this review.

Hydrogen production by water splitting on manganese ferrite-sodium carbonate mixture: Feasibility tests in a packed bed solar reactor-receiver

“…Numerous active chemical substrates have been proposed, together with different reactor concepts [1e7], for cycles operating in the 1000e2000 C temperature range. Such temperature levels are challenging and pose severe demands on materials and reactor design [8,9].…”

Entropy Analysis of Solar Two-Step Thermochemical Cycles for Water and Carbon Dioxide Splitting

“…Therefore, thermochemical cycles which increase the entropy difference and thus widen the enclosed area in the T-S diagram have been introduced. Out of many possible cycles with different numbers of intermediate steps, two-step cycling based on redox reactions has drawn most attention of the solar fuels research community [15,16]. In our previous paper we explain the two-step water-splitting process in detail [10].…”

Annual Performance of a Solar-Thermochemical Hydrogen Production Plant Based on CeO2 Redox Cycle

“…Besides the environmental benefits of the thermochemical cycles, several impediments must be confronted to the economic realization which concerns the design of reactor to reduce the radiation and conduction losses and materials development revealing satisfactory durability, reactivity and efficiencies (D'Souza, 2013;Roeb et al, 2012). Likewise, heat and mass transfer play a crucial role in the building components and for the technological implementation of thermochemical reactors.…”