Molten salt heat exchanger design for the thermolysis reactor in the Cu-Cl cycle of hydrogen production

The thermochemical copper-chlorine (Cu-Cl) cycle is known as a promising method for producing clean hydrogen. Due to the high-temperature environment of the thermolysis reactor, there are commercialization challenges with regard to the heat exchanger design. In this study, a new design for the heat exchanger used in the thermolysis reactor of a 4-step Cu-Cl cycle is presented, aiming to achieve the required temperature distribution of 430 degrees C-550 degrees C. A design methodology is developed for the heat exchanger along with an iterative algorithm for the sizing problem. The final design of this study has decreased the T. (representative of the temperature range) by 51 % compared to the previous designs, with the improvement techniques resulting in increasing the heat exchanger effectiveness and thermal performance factor by 15 % and 138 % and decreasing average TD (representative of the temperature dispersal) by 61 %. The achieved operating temperature ranges from 431.3 degrees C to 539.0 degrees C.