Solar test of an integrated sodium reflux heat pipe receiver/reactor for thermochemical energy transport

Use of concentrated radiation for solar powered glass melting experiments

“…A major part of the research into the use of concentrated solar radiation at very high temperatures has been motivated by the desire to generate high energy density thermochemical energy storage systems, see e.g. Diver et al (1992), Kodama (2003), Wieckert et al (2007), Neises et al (2012), Martinek & Weimer (2013), Tescari et al 2013), and the solar upgrading of carbonaceous materials (Zgraggen et al 2007), (Rodat et al 2010) and (Piatkowski et al 2011). These reaction schemes usually involve solar heating of combinations of gaseous and solid reactants to generate gaseous and solid products such as the two step water and CO2 splitting reactions involving intermediate metal oxides to generate hydrogen and/or synthesis gas (Steinfeld 2005), (Meier et al 2012), (Villasmil et al 2014) and (Neises et al 2012).…”

The “Porcupine”: A Novel High-Flux Absorber for Volumetric Solar Receivers

“…Instead, there is an intermediate wall, which is heated by the irradiated sunlight on one side and transfers the heat to a working fluid on the other side. The two main groups of IndirectlyIrradiated receivers are Tubular Receivers (Smith and Allman, 1990;Epstein, 1990;Litwin and Rogers, 1996) and Heat Pipe Receivers (Doerte and Goebel, 1992;Diver et al, 1992;Klimas et al, 1992;León et al, 1994;Andraka et al, 1995;Noble et al, 1995). All these receivers are limited to a working fluid temperature below 1,000°C and a solar flux of less than 1,000 kW/m 2 .…”

A review of solar methane reforming systems

“…an integrated sodium reflux heat pipe receive reactor system [63], and thus, is classified in this paper as a directly heated system. In this solar reformer, seven reactor tubes were placed inside an insulated and evacuated metal chamber containing sodium (Figure 19).…”

“…Under certain operating conditions such as high pressure processes, tube-type reactors might be better suited than the solid porous absorbers discussed previously. However, heating reactor tubes with concentrated solar energy can be challenging due to the fluctuating solar fluxes and transient nature of solar systems [63].…”

“…The liquid sodium contained in the evacuated chamber is evaporated by the solar radiation on the chamber surface facing the solar collector, and is condensed on the reactor tubes inside the chamber while releasing the heat of vaporization to the reactor tubes. Passive techniques (wicks) were used to return the liquid sodium to the evacuated chamber [63].…”