Numerical investigation of thermal disassociation of ZnO for hydrogen production: Parametric study and reactor configuration

Abstract

SUMMARY The present research is focused on the two‐step ZnO/Zn thermochemical water splitting cycle for hydrogen production. In the present paper, the numerical modeling of the first step, which involves endothermic reduction of zinc oxide (ZnO), is carried out in a cylindrical reactor using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The parametric study shows that the fractional conversion of ZnO increases with an increase in the flow rate of ZnO, while it decreases with an increase in the ZnO particle diameter and carrier gas mass flow rate. Six different reactor configurations are also assessed comprehensively. It is observed that a cylindrical reactor with a tangential inlet at the top plane and a tangential outlet at the bottom plane has higher robustness to the variation of various operating parameters with consistently high ZnO fractional conversion. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Modeling and simulation of hydrogen production from dimethyl ether steam reforming using exhaust gas

“…A CFD model can provide a powerful tool to predict reaction conversion and hydrogen production. Many kinds of reactor like micro-channel heat exchangers have been proposed for hydrogen production [7,8]. Methanol steam reforming with microwave heating is modeled to provide detailed insights in recognizing the reaction processes by Wei-Hsin Chen [9].…”