Numerical Study of a Beam-Down Solar Thermochemical Reactor for Chemical Kinetics Analysis Available to Purchase

A lab-scale solar thermochemical reactor is designed and fabricated to study the thermal reduction of non-volatile metal oxides, which operates simultaneously as solar collector and as chemical reactor. The main purpose of this reactor is to achieve the first step in two-step thermochemical cycles. The chemical conversion rate strongly depends on the temperature and fluid flow distribution around the reactant, which are determined by the reactor geometry. The optimal design depends on the constraints of the problem and on the operating parameters. Hence, the objective of this investigation is to analyze the heat and mass transfer in the vertically-oriented chemical reactor by a CFD model and to optimize the reactor design. The developed numerical model is validated by comparing the simulation results with reported model. The influence of different technical and operating parameters on the temperature distribution and the fluid flow of the reactor are studied.