- #1
Elmansi
- 4
- 0
We are required to design a facility to produce hydrogen via Sulfur-ammonia cycle making use of the solar spectrum with long wavelength spectral composition to drive thermal processes and short wavelength composition to drive the hydrogen producing using photolysis. Also, I must use the economic analysis to evaluate the design project
Initial searches of the advantages and challenges for photolytic Sulphur ammonia
Advantages: Separations are simple
Ultra-high temperature not required
Solar thermal spectrum applied to thermochemical steps; solar photolytic spectrum applied to photolysis step.
Low cost of photolytic reactor
Challenges: Solids transport required
Coordinated operation required
Spectral splitting
Photocatalyst cost effectiveness
https://www1.eere.en...r_thermo_h2.pdf
Regarding the reactor design
I lack information that is normally available at the initial stages of a design problem. In particular, the desired production rate but I can assume it, reaction conditions(only Temperature is known), information about the rate of reaction ( all reactions went to completion and that there were no side reactions or unreacted products that carried over to the next step) and catalyst state(homogenous, slurry, packed bed powder, etc), and cost data for equipment and utilities.
To efficiently use solar power one has to split intercepted solar radiation into these components and direct the split beams to their respective tasks. Since the thermal component will be useless for the photolysis process and the photoactive component will not add materially to thermal processes, can one solve this problem by using the electrical energy stored by the solar collectors to operate radiation sources located along the reactor length but this restricts us from running the process in continuous mode?
Initial searches of the advantages and challenges for photolytic Sulphur ammonia
Advantages: Separations are simple
Ultra-high temperature not required
Solar thermal spectrum applied to thermochemical steps; solar photolytic spectrum applied to photolysis step.
Low cost of photolytic reactor
Challenges: Solids transport required
Coordinated operation required
Spectral splitting
Photocatalyst cost effectiveness
https://www1.eere.en...r_thermo_h2.pdf
Regarding the reactor design
I lack information that is normally available at the initial stages of a design problem. In particular, the desired production rate but I can assume it, reaction conditions(only Temperature is known), information about the rate of reaction ( all reactions went to completion and that there were no side reactions or unreacted products that carried over to the next step) and catalyst state(homogenous, slurry, packed bed powder, etc), and cost data for equipment and utilities.
To efficiently use solar power one has to split intercepted solar radiation into these components and direct the split beams to their respective tasks. Since the thermal component will be useless for the photolysis process and the photoactive component will not add materially to thermal processes, can one solve this problem by using the electrical energy stored by the solar collectors to operate radiation sources located along the reactor length but this restricts us from running the process in continuous mode?