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Analysis of radiation heat transfer and temperature distributions of solar thermochemical reactor for syngas production

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Abstract

This paper investigated radiation heat transfer and temperature distributions of solar thermochemical reactor for syngas production using the finite volume discrete ordinate method (fvDOM) and P1 approximation for radiation heat transfer. Different parameters including absorptivity, emissivity, reflection based radiation scattering, and carrier gas flow inlet velocity that would greatly affect the reactor thermal performance were sufficiently investigated. The fvDOM approximation was used to obtain the radiation intensity distribution along the reactor. The drop in the temperature resulted from the radiation scattering was further investigated using the P1 approximation. The results indicated that the reactor temperature difference between the P1 approximation and the fvDOM radiation model was very close under different operating conditions. However, a big temperature difference which increased with an increase in the radiation emissivity due to the thermal non-equilibrium was observed in the radiation inlet region. It was found that the incident radiation flux distribution had a strong impact on the temperature distribution throughout the reactor. This paper revealed that the temperature drop caused by the boundary radiation heat loss should not be neglected for the thermal performance analysis of solar thermochemical reactor.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51522601 and 51421063) and the program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (Grant No. NCET-13-0173).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 15001, China

    Bachirou Guene Lougou, Yong Shuai, Xiang Chen, Yuan Yuan & Heping Tan

  2. College of Metallurgy and Energy, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan, 063009, China

    Huang Xing

Authors
  1. Bachirou Guene Lougou
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  2. Yong Shuai
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  3. Xiang Chen
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  4. Yuan Yuan
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  5. Heping Tan
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  6. Huang Xing
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Correspondence to Yong Shuai or Huang Xing.

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Guene Lougou, B., Shuai, Y., Chen, X. et al. Analysis of radiation heat transfer and temperature distributions of solar thermochemical reactor for syngas production. Front. Energy 11, 480–492 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-017-0506-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-017-0506-2

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