Concept Analysis of An Indirect Particle-Based Redox Process For Solar-Driven H O/Co Splitting
Concept Analysis of An Indirect Particle-Based Redox Process For Solar-Driven H O/Co Splitting
Concept Analysis of An Indirect Particle-Based Redox Process For Solar-Driven H O/Co Splitting
com
ScienceDirect
Solar Energy 113 (2015) 158170
www.elsevier.com/locate/solener
Received 11 August 2014; received in revised form 21 December 2014; accepted 29 December 2014
Available online 22 January 2015
Abstract
The production of solar fuels by thermochemical redox cycles has gathered a lot of attention in the research community over the last
years. Still, several challenges are to be overcome to reach high eciencies with technically feasible process concepts. Critical barriers
have been identied for the development of receiverreactors because of conicting design and operation requirements for the processes
of solar absorption, heat and mass transfer, and the chemical reaction. In addition, thermodynamic studies have indicated the need of
solid phase heat recuperation in order to reach high process eciencies, which adds further complexity to the design. Balancing out the
multitude of constrains while respecting technical limitations is a very dicult but necessary task. This study addresses this challenge with
the development of a new process concept which includes a solid phase heat recovery approach. The concept is based on decoupling the
dierent process steps by using a particulate redox material in combination with a particulate heat transfer material. A model is intro-
duced to analyse the process performance of the proposed concept. The performance of the system is calculated and assessed for a range
of cases, with optimistic and more conservative assumptions for the boundary conditions. While the system reaches peak eciencies in
the range of 30% for optimistic boundary conditions, the peak eciency drops to just above 15% for the conservative case. Additionally,
the implementation of a multi-reactor approach to lower parasitic losses is presented and analysed. By extending the system to multiple
reactors working at optimized oxygen partial pressures signicant reductions of the vacuum pumping power demand are obtained,
resulting in a 20% system eciency increase. Besides the performance analysis of the concept, its specic challenges and advantages, like
the increased exibility for design and operation, are discussed.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Redox cycle; Solar fuel; Heat recovery; Heat transfer particle
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2014.12.035
0038-092X/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
S. Brendelberger, C. Sattler / Solar Energy 113 (2015) 158170 159
Nomenclature
monoxide respectively in a two-step process. Firstly, the results in severe thermal energy losses if solid phase heat
metal-oxide MO is reduced in an endothermic reaction recovery is not implemented.
(1) where the high temperature heat is provided by concen- Heat recovery strategies were proposed for dierent
trated solar radiation. receiverreactors (Diver et al., 2008; Lapp et al., 2013;
Ermanoski et al., 2013). The solid phase heat recovery
d
MO ! MO1d O2 1 strategy for the concept by Lapp et al. (2013) was numeri-
2 cally analysed and resulted in an recovery eciency of 30%
In a second exothermic reaction (2) the reduced metal- for a baseline case (Lapp and Lipinski, 2014). Still, an
oxide is used to split H2O or CO2, or a mixture of both, experimental demonstration of signicant recovery rates
returning the metal-oxide to the original state. in the context of thermochemical cycles has not been yet
reported. Any such attempts face severe technical chal-
MO1d dH2 O ! MO dH2 lenges due to the extreme process conditions, especially if
MO1d dCO2 ! MO dCO 2 combined with a receiverreactor.
A reduction of the temperature dierence and optimiza-
The reduction extent d implies that the reduction is often tion of the process temperatures and pressures is discussed
non-stoichiometric, especially for non-volatile cycles and is in dierent publications (Bader et al., 2013; Ermanoski
dependent on the temperature and partial pressure of oxy- et al., 2014; Hao et al., 2013; Muhich et al., 2013; Roeb
gen during the reduction; here the reduction extent is and Sattler, 2013). In this literature concerns about possi-
increased with higher temperatures and lower partial pres- ble constraints by thermodynamics and kinetics of the
sures of oxygen. redox material and gas phase heat recovery were raised.
The reduction extent of ceria, as a frequently considered It is expected that further eorts in material develop-
redox material, is about 0.06 at 1500 C and 1 Pa oxygen ment will result in redox materials with more favourable
partial pressure (Panlener et al., 1975). As a result 94% of properties which will reduce the need for demanding pro-
the ceria remains unreacted during the cycle even at these cess requirements. Amongst others, potential material
challenging temperatures and partial pressures. Further- improvements have been reported for dopants of ceria
more, the processes are usually driven in a temperature (Call et al., 2013; Le Gal et al., 2013; Lee et al., 2013;
swing mode, where the temperatures of the two steps dier Miller et al., 2014) and types of perovskites (McDaniel
by several hundred Kelvin. Therefore, the sensible heating et al., 2013). These improvements refer mainly to an
demand is typically several times higher than the endother- increase of the reduction extent at given temperature and
mic energy required for the reduction reaction which oxygen partial pressure. But since this is only one of several
160 S. Brendelberger, C. Sattler / Solar Energy 113 (2015) 158170
leaves the reduction-reactor (RR) after separation from provide high heat transfer rates between both particle
stream 1 particles at a temperature T2,rr_out and a reduction streams. Afterwards the particles of the two streams are
extent drr_out. Subsequently the hot, reduced redox stream separated. In the case of particles with diering sizes, the
enters a heat recovery system to transfer sensible heat to separation might be achieved by sieving. Other separation
stream 3 while cooling. The reduced particles of stream 2 methods are possible if the particles dier in other physical
leave the cooling section at a temperature T2,cd_out and properties like density or their magnetic state. An analysis
the reduction extent drr_out. The stream has then to be fur- of the heat transfer between the particles in the particle mix
ther cooled to the oxidation temperature Tox before it and the implications for the system can be found at
enters the oxidation-reactor (OR). Here the reduced redox Brendelberger et al. (2014) and Felinks et al. (2014).
material stream is used to split H2O, CO2 or a combination
of both. While in principle the process can be applied to all 2.3. Concept advantages
three cases the following analysis considers only H2O for
reasons of simplicity. Exothermic heat generated during In the following subsections the advantages of the con-
the reaction is removed from the reactor. The redox stream cept are described. To better understand the potential of
leaves the oxidation-reactor (OR) at the temperature Tox the concept some general prerequisites of solar-driven ther-
and the reduction extent dox_out. Afterwards the redox mochemical redox processes for the ecient production of
stream is fed into the second heat recovery section where signicant amounts of solar fuel are briey outlined. The
it is pre-heated by the high temperature heat of the particles framework of these requirements is given by the perfor-
in stream 3. The redox particle stream leaves the pre-heat- mance of experimentally tested redox materials. Central
ing section at a temperature T2,ph_out which is equal to requirements are:
T2,rr_in. In Fig. 1 two heat exchange stages per recovery sys-
tem are depicted HXC1 and HXC2 for the cooling of the Provision of high temperature heat
redox stream and HXH1 and HXH2 for pre-heating the Low partial pressures of oxygen during reduction
redox stream. The number of stages in each recovery sys- Low auxiliary energy consumption
tem should be optimized for a given set of boundary High solid heat recovery rates
parameters (Felinks et al., 2014). Continuous use of solar radiation
The third stream consists of particles which are used as Reasonable performance during part load
solid heat transfer medium. Stream 3 cycles between the Scalability
two heat recovery sections. It enters the cooling redox sec-
tion at a temperature T3,cd_in and leaves it at a higher tem- Many proposed concepts in literature do not address at
perature T3,cd_out. Its heat is then used in the pre-heating least one of these requirements and it is not a simple task to
redox section to heat the redox stream while lowering its overcome these constraints at a later stage of development.
own temperature from T3,ph_in to T3,ph_out. Instead it is recommended to consider all these aspects in
the early stages of the concept development to avoid unsat-
2.2. Process characteristics and challenges isfactory compromises being adopted later in the
development.
An indirect concept has the inherent drawback that for The herein proposed concept is an attempt to provide a
reaching the same temperature during the reduction reac- strategy to meaningfully account for the outlined require-
tion as in a receiverreactor, the absorbing material has ments. The concept is considering the decoupling of several
to have a somewhat higher temperature. Therefore, higher process steps in order to maximize the design and opera-
heat losses have to be expected. The impact of the higher tion exibility of the related technical units and to make
heat losses on the system performance will be analysed in the process constrains manageable by dividing them to
Section 3. the decoupled steps. The term decoupling is used to
The concept has increased complexity due to the inte- describe a spatial and temporal separation of dierent
gration of additional material streams and additional pro- physical or chemical phenomena. Especially the decoupling
cess elements. However, the indirect concept decouples the of the solar integration and the reduction reaction by use of
solar integration from the reaction and hence separates the a heat transfer material has the potential to decrease tech-
requirements for the receiver and for the reduction reactor. nical challenges. These aspects will be discussed in further
While the process schema becomes more complex, con- detail in the following sections.
strains on the single process units are reduced, increasing
the exibility for design and operation. 2.3.1. Decoupling
A specic challenge of this concept is to nd a compat- Most of the concepts for solar thermochemical cycles in
ible combination of redox particles and inert particles the literature propose processes where the solar integration
which are stable under the process conditions. Also the is coupled to the thermal reduction using so called receiver
handling of the particles is challenging and under further reactors (Chueh et al., 2010; Diver et al., 2010; Ermanoski
investigation. In the reduction-reactor, and in the heat et al., 2013; Furler et al., 2012; Gokon et al., 2009; Kaneko
exchange stages, particles of two streams are mixed to et al., 2011; Lapp et al., 2013; Roeb et al., 2011). While
162 S. Brendelberger, C. Sattler / Solar Energy 113 (2015) 158170
often heat recovery is not considered in the design, some of to the requirement of a window. The window is often posi-
the concepts have an inherent heat recovery approach tioned close to the aperture to reduce the window size since
(Diver et al., 2010; Ermanoski et al., 2013; Lapp et al., quartz glass windows of high quality are so far not avail-
2013). To enable a continuous operation, concepts are pro- able for larger dimensions. The high process temperatures
posed where the redox material is positioned on a cylinder require high concentration factors to limit the re-radiation
and rotated from a receiverreactor section to an oxidation losses. This results in high solar uxes at the level of the
reactor section (Diver et al., 2010; Kaneko et al., 2011; windows. Extreme care has to be taken to avoid the soiling
Lapp et al., 2013). The residence time of the redox material of the windows in such an environment, especially if a par-
in each reactor zone is strongly linked to the rotation steed ticulate material is used in the receiverreactor. The size
and the reactor sizes. The exibility for choosing optimal limitations of these windows have also to be considered if
sizes for both reactors is limited by the circumference of the scalability of the concept is discussed.
the rotating cylinder. This leads to compromises in the If particles are used in receiverreactors and long resi-
selection of design and operational parameters (Lapp and dence times are needed, often beam down congurations
Lipinski, 2014) which may result in reduced system ecien- are considered. Receiverreactors for beam down system
cies especially during part load. also have the advantage that a contact between the absorb-
Ermanoski et al. (2013) pointed out the benet of decou- ing particles and the window can be avoided more easily.
pling the reduction step from the oxidation step to account Nevertheless, beam down systems are in a less mature stage
for the discrepancy in the characteristic times of the two of development and their complex optics are challenging
reactions. They therefore proposed to transport a particu- for the eciency and system costs (Segal and Epstein,
late redox material through the cycle. With this approach, 1999). Additional research eort has to be provided if beam
the sizes of the reactors can be chosen independently giving down congurations are considered.
more freedom in the selection of the residence times. Still, In the herein proposed indirect concept there are less
the concept considers a receiverreactor with coupled solar constraints for the receiver. This is due to the combination
integration and reduction reaction. In addition the pro- of its decoupling from the reactor, the use of particles, and
posed heat recovery strategy is strongly linked to the recei- the assumed ecient solid phase heat recovery system. A
verreactor resulting in challenges described above. highly ecient heat recovery system signicantly reduces
In the herein proposed new indirect concept the idea of the necessary temperature increase which has to be pro-
decoupling is further expanded so that the process steps vided by solar irradiation. If heat recovery rates of 0.75
solar integration, thermal reduction, oxidation and heat can be reached and similar particle mass ow rates of heat
recovery are implemented in independent units with clearly transfer particles and redox particles are considered this
denable interfaces. This permits the design and optimiza- temperature dierence is in the order of 200 K. At the tar-
tion of each unit to be undertaken somewhat geted high heat uxes the residence times of the particles in
independently. the receiver can be kept relatively short. Since no special
requirements on the atmosphere are to be met, a window
2.3.2. Heat transfer particles might be avoided but increased convection losses would
The application of heat transfer particles has a great have to be considered. Convection losses can be limited
potential for improving the system performance by by declined apertures (Clausing 1981, 1983) and might be
enabling new operational strategies. The rst clear benet compensated by a performance gain due to the absence
is the possibility to store the heat transfer particles and of reection losses of the window. Given the requirements
make the operation of the redox cycle to a certain extent above, a free falling particle open cavity receiver on a tower
independent of the current solar irradiation. This permits might be considered. Similar receiver types are currently
that the redox cycle can be operated continuously near investigated (Roger et al., 2011; Siegel et al., 2010; Wu
design point eciency even during changing solar irradia- et al., 2014, 2011) and are to be adapted to the process
tion conditions. requirements.
Due to the high specic surface of the particle streams,
high heat transfer rates can be realized. This applies to 2.3.4. Materials
the solar integration in the receiver as well as to the heat As described in Section 2.3.2, the introduction of heat
transfer between the dierent kinds of particles in the reac- transfer particles comes with its own challenges. However,
tor and the heat recovery stages. it reduces the requirements of the redox material signi-
cantly due to the decoupling of the solar integration and
2.3.3. Receiver the thermal reduction. The coupled solar integration and
So far, in most receiverreactor concepts proposed in lit- thermal reduction in a receiverreactor leads to demanding
erature the redox material is directly irradiated in a con- requirements if reaction limitations by heat transfer, mass
trolled atmosphere with a low partial pressure of oxygen transfer and reduction kinetics have to be avoided. As
(Chueh et al., 2010; Diver et al., 2010; Ermanoski et al., described above the high process temperatures presuppose
2013; Furler et al., 2012; Gokon et al., 2009; Kaneko high levels of solar concentration. Since the ratio of cavity
et al., 2011; Lapp et al., 2013; Roeb et al., 2011). This leads surface to aperture area is limited for scalable designs, also
S. Brendelberger, C. Sattler / Solar Energy 113 (2015) 158170 163
the redox material at the level of the cavity walls is exposed pressure. Reduced oxygen partial pressures are maintained
to high solar uxes. A perfect redox material would heat up by lowering the absolute pressure in the chamber using a
homogenously and reduce directly to the thermodynami- vacuum system. Purging with a sweep gas or a combination
cally described reduction extent. Due to limitations in heat of purging and reduction of the working pressure are also
transfer, in oxygen diusion in the redox material, in sur- options for maintaining a low oxygen partial pressure but
face reaction and in oxygen removal in the gas phase, the are likely to result in larger parasitic losses Ermanoski
reaction propagation in a real reactor may be considerably et al. (2013), Lapp et al. (2012) and are therefore not dis-
delayed, with an actual achieved reduction extent well cussed here.
below that for the thermodynamic equilibrium. This is par- This study focuses on the introduction of the new con-
ticularly the case due to the low thermal conductivities and cept and its process implications rather than on material
limited oxygen diusivities of typical redox material candi- aspects. Therefore ceria is chosen because it is a well inves-
dates which leads to reduction extent gradients for thicker tigated reference redox material (Abanades and Flamant,
structures. This eect was reported for receiverreactors 2006; Chueh and Haile, 2010; Lee et al., 2013; Panlener
where the heat and mass transfer and the chemical reaction et al., 1975) which has been considered in several previous
were simulated (Kaneko et al., 2011; Lapp and Lipinski, solar thermochemical redox concepts (Chueh et al., 2010;
2014). Also Miller et al. (2014) address this point by analys- Ermanoski et al., 2013; Lapp et al., 2013).
ing diusion lengths for heat and mass transport of typical Material candidates for stream 1 and stream 3 are high
redox material candidates. temperature materials like zirconia, alumina or silica but
In case of the indirect concept the eective surface area also adequately doped ceria may be considered. In this
for the heat exchange in the particle mix can be much larger study a nonreactive material with the physical properties
than in the receiver assuming a larger reactor volume with of ceria is assumed. Again, this helps to keep the focus of
longer residence times. Due to this, more time is available the analysis on the concept performance, rather than on
for the reaction to progress and a reduction extent closer material aspects. Since the mass ow rates of the streams
to the thermodynamic limit may be obtained. can be selected independently, a material with diering heat
capacity is expected to result in a similar process perfor-
2.4. Methodology mance when the mass ow rates are adjusted accordingly.
The model of the reduction-reactor considers the condi-
For the analysis of the process concept a model was tions of the particles of stream 1 and stream 2 as input
built using MATLAB1. The physical and chemical interac- parameters. The oxygen partial pressure is set to a xed
tions in each step of the process are calculated considering value and is assumed to be maintained constant. The
energy and mass conservation. reduction extent is calculated based on this oxygen partial
The incident power on the primary mirrors is dened as: pressure and the temperature of the redox material of
stream 2 leaving the reactor. For this calculation the ther-
P solar DNI Acollector 3
modynamic data of the redox material is used (Panlener
with the collector area Acollector and the direct normal irra- et al., 1975), assuming that the residence time in the reduc-
diance DNI. The power absorbed by the irradiated parti- tion-reactor is long enough for the thermodynamic equilib-
cles Pabsorption is determined by Eq. (4) considering the rium reduction extent to be reached. For redox material
mirror losses lm, the aperture intercept lai, the optional win- with fast reaction kinetics like ceria and small particle sizes,
dow lw, and the absorptivity a. this assumption seems reasonable (Schee et al., 2014).
P absorption lm lai lw aP solar 4 The oxidation-reactor is operated with steam at ambient
pressure and at a xed oxidation temperature. The exother-
The hot absorbing particles re-radiate energy out of the mic heat of the oxidation is made available for auxiliary
aperture. This power loss Pre-radiation is a function of the processes. A gas-phase heat recovery system is considered.
temperature T and the concentration factor C. The reduction extent after oxidation is calculated with the
P re-radiation P absorption rT 4 =C DNI 5 above described thermodynamics of the redox material and
the operational parameters. Excess ratios of steam to
The absorption and emission coecients are considered hydrogen are calculated assuming a counter ow arrange-
being equal. The thermal power Pthermal provided by the ment of steam and redox material (Bader et al., 2013).
receiver is used to increase the temperature of the inert par- For the recuperation of the sensible heat of the redox
ticles of stream 1. particles the heat of the hot reduced redox particles is
P thermal P absorption P re-radiation 6 transferred to the particles of stream 3. Afterwards the
stream 3 particles are used to heat the redox particle stream
In the reduction-reactor the heat of the inert particle after leaving the oxidation-reactor. Using one mixing and
stream 1 is used to heat the redox particle stream 2 and separation unit results in a co-current heat exchanger. By
to reduce it in an atmosphere with dened oxygen partial using multiple units a quasi-counter-current heat transfer
system is realized (Brendelberger et al., 2014; Felinks
1
MATLAB (R2008b) www.mathworks.com. et al., 2014).
164 S. Brendelberger, C. Sattler / Solar Energy 113 (2015) 158170
The converged solution is characterised by the tempera- eciency (Eq. (8)) plays an increasing role for the
tures of the particle streams and the reduction extent of the overall performance and the solar eciency drops
redox material at all steps, and the incoming and outgoing signicantly.
mass and energy ows. Based on this converged solution The second calculated performance shows the indirect
the performance of the system is analysed considering the system with the same boundary conditions like in the direct
resulting hydrogen production rate and the power con- case. The maximum temperature limits of the particles in
sumption of the system. The solar-to-fuel conversion e- stream 1, 2 and 3 are set to 1773 K respectively. The e-
ciency shortly called solar eciency of the process is ciency of the indirect concept is on average 2 percentage
dened as: points lower compared to the eciency of the direct con-
n_ H2 HHV H2 cept. Even though the redox material can in theory reach
gsolar 11 1773 K, this would require an innitely large mass ow rate
DNI ACollector Q_ additional of stream 1. As discussed in Section 2.4.1 an increase in the
The denominator comprises the solar input at the collec- mass ow rate of stream 1 is related to a larger auxiliary
tor eld area ACollector and the additionally required heat power demand for particle transportation, limiting the
ow Q_ additional for the non-compensated auxiliary power maximum redox temperature during the optimization. At
demand. reduced redox material temperatures lower reduction
Dierent cases are assessed by varying the oxygen par- extents are obtained which result in the observed eciency
tial pressure while the other process parameters are kept discrepancy between the direct and indirect concept.
constant. For any given set of process parameters a nonlin- Even though the temperature of a redox material may be
ear multivariable optimization routine is applied to nd limited to a certain maximum value due to stability and
mass ow rates of the dierent particle streams which result volatilisation issues, the particles used for the absorption
in the highest solar-to-fuel conversion eciency respecting in the receiver may in principle not have the same limita-
maximum temperature limits for the dierent particle tions and may therefore be operated at a higher tempera-
streams. These optimized eciency values are depicted in ture. With an increased maximum temperature limit of
the following gures as function of the oxygen partial stream 1 particles the redox material can reach a tempera-
pressure. ture of 1773 K at a nite stream 1 mass ow rate. Higher
temperatures of stream 1 particles lead to higher heat
losses. On the other hand, higher temperatures also
3. Performance analysis increase the reduction extent and thus the thermal to chem-
ical eciency. The system is analysed at dierent oxygen
3.1. Base case partial pressures as a function of the temperature limit
for stream 1 particles in the receiver. In Fig. 4 the solar e-
The introduced model is used to calculate the ciency of an indirect system relative to a direct system at a
performance of the proposed indirect particle based reduction temperature of 1773 K is given as a function of
process concept for dierent process parameters. For the stream 1 temperature limit T1,max for several oxygen
the validation of the process model methodology the partial pressures. By increasing the temperature limit, the
performance results are compared to the direct particle
based system presented by Ermanoski et al. (2013). For
this purpose a receiverreactor is included in the model
description. Assuming the same boundary conditions,
the calculated system performance agrees well with
the reference.
Firstly, the indirect concept is compared to the direct
concept to assess the eciency penalty resulting from the
indirect approach. A concentration factor value of
C = 5000 and a reduction reactor operation temperature
of 1773 K are assumed. The heat recovery eectiveness is
set to 0.8 for both systems. For the heat recovery system
presented in this paper, this requires an arrangement of
10 units with an eectiveness of 0.9 per unit (Felinks
et al., 2014)). Further process parameters are given in
Table 1.
The performance of the direct system is shown in
Fig. 3. Solar eciency as function of oxygen partial pressure. The
Fig. 3. For oxygen partial pressures above 100 Pa
maximum temperature of the particles in stream 1 is varied. For
the system performance is similar to the results pre- comparison the solar eciency of a direct system with a heat recovery
sented by Ermanoski et al. (2013). For lower partial rate of 0.8 is included. Further parameters for the calculation are given in
pressures the pressure depended vacuum pumping Table 1.
166 S. Brendelberger, C. Sattler / Solar Energy 113 (2015) 158170
dierence between the indirect and the direct system 3.2. Conservative case
becomes less signicant. The higher thermal to chemical
eciency overcompensates the increased heat losses and The base case scenario, shown in Fig. 5, considers rather
the solar to chemical eciency approaches the performance optimistic assumptions for the boundary conditions (see
of a direct system. For pressures between 10 Pa and Table 1). In the following analysis, for several boundary
10,000 Pa the relative eciency grelative reaches 0.99 at conditions more conservative values are assumed and the
about T1,max = 1805 K. For 1 Pa the relative eciency is changes in system performance are discussed. The conser-
minimally aected by a change in T1,max and stays at vative values accumulate from case to case so that in the
around 0.975. For 100,000 Pa the relative eciency grows nal case conservative values are considered for all dis-
rapidly with increasing T1,max but stays slightly below cussed boundary conditions.
0.975 for T1,max = 1810 K. For a temperature limit of Starting from the base case scenario the concentration
1805 K the relative eciency losses of the indirect system, factor is reduced from C = 5000 to C = 3000 which is a
for all considered cases, remain below 5% and, in most more realistic but still challenging value for a tower cong-
cases, under 1%. In the following discussion a stream 1 uration. The solar eciency values in this scenario are
temperature limit of T1,max = 1805 K will be assumed. It smaller than in the base case especially at the peak of the
is to be noted, that even though the maximum temperature eciency curve. Here the two cases dier by about 2.5 per-
limit for the optimization routine is increased, the actual centage points which seems reasonable considering a 40%
obtained maximum temperature of the optimized solution lower concentration factor.
might be lower than this value. For the next case also the number of heat recovery
In Fig. 3 the performance of an indirect system with a stages is reduced from 10 to 6 which results in a reduced
stream 1 temperature limit T1,max = 1805 K is depicted. solid phase heat recovery eectiveness of gSHR = 0.7 com-
In this case, the eciencies are only slightly lower pared to the previous value of gSHR = 0.8. This reduction
compared to the direct case for oxygen partial pressures of the heat recovery eectiveness of 12.5% results in
down to 30 Pa. Since the vacuum pumping power another solar eciency shift of a similar magnitude like
demand increases with decreasing pressures the available in the last case. Also here the dierence in the eciencies
excess waste heat for the lifting of the particles gets diminishes for the lower and upper limits of the considered
reduced at lower pressures. As a result the optimized oxygen partial pressure range and reaches a maximum
eciency values drop under the values of the direct value of about 5.5 percentage points compared to the base
system and approach the values of the indirect system case at the peak eciency. This emphasises the importance
with a stream 1 temperature limit of T1,max = 1773 K. of a solid phase heat recovery system for the process.
This analysis shows that the increased re-radiation losses In the next case the conversion eciency of waste heat
are not a critical eciency drawback of an indirect system to electricity is reduced form gw2e = 0.4 to gw2e = 0.1
under the given boundary conditions. The maximum accounting for higher non-recoverable heat losses. With
temperatures will be rather dened by technical and this assumption the quality of the eciency curve changes
material limitations. The indirect system with T1,max = signicantly, shifting the peak eciency to a higher oxygen
1805 K at C = 5000 will be considered as the base case partial pressures of about 100 Pa and reducing it to 17.8%
in the following analysis. compared to a peak eciency of the base case of about
29.5%. Compared to the last case the reduced conversion
Fig. 7. Schematic of the process layout for a system with 3 reduction reactors.
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