Yang, Z., Zhang, Z., Li, X., Tan, M., Zhang, D., Wang, L., Wei, L., & Zhu, Y. (2025). Boosted solar-driven thermochemical syngas production using bio-inspired indirectly irradiated reactor with BaFe3Al9O19 hexaaluminate oxygen carrier. Chemical Engineering Journal, 516, 164106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2025.164106
Abstract:
Solar-driven chemical looping partial oxidation of methane using solid oxygen from oxygen carrier is a key pathway for utilizing abundant solar energy to produce F-T ready syngas, which can upgrade methane into high-value chemicals and address global energy demands. However, the different requirements for the heat and gas–solid reaction processes make it difficult to synchronize in traditional reactors due to the high space–time coupling. This paper innovatively proposes an internally circulating fluidized-bed reactor incorporating squid-fin-inspired internals with BaFe3Al9O19 hexaaluminate as oxygen carrier, to provide a new approach for optimizing the spatiotemporal control of heat and mass transfer for chemical reaction. The results show that the high-velocity for the solar heat transfer and low-velocity regions for gas–solid reaction processes could be successfully achieved in circulating fluidized bed solar reactor via the internal circulation of BaFe3Al9O19 particles. As a result, compared to the traditional fluidized-bed reactors, the squid-fin-inspired internally circulating fluidized-bed reactor increases the bed temperature by 46 K and chemical reaction rate by 2.09 times, respectively. Such an enhancement effectively not only promotes the endothermic reaction of methane-to-syngas conversion and the solar-to-fuel efficiency.
License type:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Funding Info:
This research / project is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China - National Natural Science Foundation of China
Grant Reference no. : 22278332, 22378331
This research / project is supported by the Science and Technology Department of Shaanxi Province - Shaanxi Province’s Key Research and Development Plan
Grant Reference no. : 2023-YBGY-317, 2023-YBGY-175
This research / project is supported by the Science and Technology Department of Shaanxi Province - Xi’an QinChuangyuan scientist and engineer team construction project
Grant Reference no. : 23KGDW0009-2023, 2024KJZGKG003