Report on solar reactor testing and evaluation

Timcal, Belguim
January 13, 2009

WP6 - Plans for Upscaling

Approaching the eve of the last year of the SOLHYCARB Consortium, this is an appropriate time to make an evaluation of the cost of erection of an up-to-date version of the WIS SR10 Reactor for co-production of Hydrogen and Carbon Black by solar splitting of Methane, and for an estimate of the additional expenditure that will be needed to up-scale its performance to the maximum value. 1. The WIS SR10 Kw loop consists of the following items: 1. The heliostat secondary concentrator optical system. 2. The SR10 10 Kw WIS reactor. 3. Testing, monitoring and data acquisition equipment 4. Auxiliary equipment piping, valves, etc. 1.1. The optical system consists of one 56m2 heliostat and a 155 cm diameter, 64.1 cm focal distance secondary concentrator mounted on an appropriate stand located on the 7th floor of the Solar Tower. This equipment is part of the Solar Tower facility that can be used by WIS personnel or by other firms, by agreement. 1.2. The SR10 reactor (Figs. 1 to 4). The following table itemizes the components of the reactor, the materials of construction, the cost of labor and the cost of material (in US$), spent on the fabrication and/or item acquisition.

Item

Number Material Labor/ hrs Zirconia Copper Copper S.Steel S.Steel S.Steel S.Steel S.Steel S.Steel S.Steel S.Steel S.Steel S.Steel Quartz Perspex 120

Total Labor 2 280

Cost of Total Material 3 474 6 354

Reactor Insulation discs 6 Reactor metal components Shaped cylinder 1 Impellor discs 3 Flanges 4 Flanges 2 Flanges 2 Flange 1 Flanges 2 Long tube 1 Short tube 1 Flange 1 Container 1 Tube ring 1 Window Disc Fluidizer Filter 5 1 1

21 21 112 30 4 5 42 20 14 5 21 14 Total:309 7 416 28

2 000 895

Total 1. 3. Testing, monitoring and data acquisition equipment cost in US$ FLUKE 2625A Data Logger Varian 3900 GCS Chromatograph Intel Pentium II ATX Computer Toshiba Satellite A 110-195 Computer CPU Intel Memory 512 MB Hard Disc 80 GB Drives DVD Super-Multi drive GOW-MAC 21-050 Mini Gas leak detector IMPAC Water-cooled Pyrometer for measurement of quartz window surface temperature 5 x SIERRA Mass-Track Mass Flow Meters Rosemount Absolute Pressure 0-1 bar Thermocouples type T, B and C Total 1.4. Auxiliary equipment Piping, valves, pressure gauges, rotameters, safety sensor etc. TOTAL

9 416 895 672 6 640 23 977

3 410 19 000 1 284 1 412

1 450 4 840 5 400 504 4 000 41 300 4 000

69 277

Figure 1. Schematic layout of components of the WIS prototype reactor SR10

Figure 2. Axial cross section of the WIS 10 Kw prototype reactor

Figure 3. Schematic representation of fifth fluidizer

Figure 4. Pulse-jet filter

2. Estimate of envelope of performance of the STMS system using the confined Tornado flow configuration for reactor window protection By room temperature testing we have determined that for a reactor of the size of our SR10 prototype, transition from laminar to turbulent flow occurs at a gas flowrate of 20 l/min, corresponding to an Ekman number E= 3.413 x 10 -5 . By raising the reaction temperature to 2000K, the gas kinematic viscosity goes up by a factor of 25. The transition to turbulent flow in the same reactor at 2000K will occur at a gas flowrate of 20 x 25 = 500 l/min. By the CET computer program, the Methane Splitting reaction at 2000K requires an energy supply of 3.62 KW/(mol CH4, 298 K/min) At the limit of the envelope of performance of our system we may process

The requisite solar energy input would be

The above calculation is approximate since we did not account for the energy absorbed by non reacting gas (He, N2) that flows through the reaction chamber. An experimental solar test of the capacity (~80 Kw) cannot be performed with our present imaging optics system (one heliostat + secondary concentrator). Dr A. Segal performed ray tracing calculations for a non-imaging optical system which concentrates the radiation from a cluster of 8 heliostats that deliver their partly concentrated solar radiation to the entrance of an appropriate CPC, as described in the tables following. The cost of the requisite CPC is estimated as $30 000 and certain changes in the reactor design will entail an additional expenditure of up to $5 000. The total estimated expenditure for the erection of the upscaled modular STMS unit is: $ 69 277 30 000 5 000 $ 104 277