The design of a solar-driven catalytic reactor for CO2 conversions

The solar energy has been employed to provide the heat for CO2 conversions for several years except for its use on power generation, since it is one of the most common renewable energy resources and the total amount is enormous; However, the dominant method is to concentrate solar rays directly on reactants, relying on the design and quality of the receivers a lot. The operation and maintenance of the receivers require extra attention due to the delicate structure of the receivers and the potential contamination on the lenses from the chemical reactions. To steer clear of the shortcoming, a solar-driven catalytic reactor has been designed and analyzed in this article. The reactor drives the endothermic reactions with the heat source of hot gases, which are produced in solar receivers upriver, thus the flexible and necessary operations on the catalytic reactor could be peeled off from the solar receiver, and the potential contamination on the optical components in the solar receiver could be avoided. The design processes and details are described, the heat performance is simulated and analyzed, and efficiencies are theoretically calculated in this article. The solar-driven catalytic reactor exhibits the possibility of the practical use of solar energy in CO2 conversion and recycle. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.