Current technology development for CO2 utilization into solar fuels and chemicals:A review

The continuous consumption of fossil fuels causes two important impediments including emission of large concentrations of CO2 resulting in global warming and alarming utilization of energy assets.The conversion of greenhouse gas CO2 into solar fuels can be an expedient accomplishment for the solution of both problems,all together.CO2 reutilization into valuable fuels and chemicals is a great challenge of the current century.Owing to limitations in traditional approaches,there have been developed many novel technologies such as photochemical,biochemical,electrochemical,plasma-chemical and solar thermochemical.They are currently being used for CO2 capture,sequestration,and utilization to transform CO2 into valuable products such as syngas,methane,methanol,formic acid,as well as fossil fuel consumption reduction.This review summarizes different traditional and novel thermal technologies used in CO2 conversion with detailed information about their working principle,types,currently adopted methods,developments,conversion rates,products formed,catalysts and operating conditions.Moreover,a comparison of these novel technologies in terms of distinctive key features such as conversion rate,yield,use of earth metals,renewable energy,investment,and operating cost has been provided in order to have a useful review for future research direction.

Analysis of CO_2 utilization into synthesis gas based on solar thermochemical CH_4-reforming

In this study, the solar thermochemical reactor performance for CO_2 utilization into synthesis gas(H_2+ CO) based on CH_4 reforming process was investigated in the context of carbon capture and utilization(CCU) technologies. The P1 radiation heat transfer model is adopted to establish the heat and mass transfer model coupled with thermochemical reaction kinetics. The reactor thermal behavior with direct heat transfer between gaseous reactant and products evolution and the effects of different structural parameters were evaluated. It was found that the reactor has the potential to utilize by ～60% of CO_2 captured with 40% of CH_4 co-fed into syngas(72.9% of H_2 and 27.1% of CO) at 741.31 k W/mof incident radiation heat flux. However, the solar irradiance heat flux and temperature distribution were found to significantly affect the reactant species conversion efficiency and syngas production. The chemical reaction is mainly driven by the thermal energy and higher species conversion into syngas was observed when the temperature distribution at the inner cavity of the reactor was more uniform. Designed a solar thermochemical reactor able to volumetric store concentrated irradiance could highly improve CCU technologies for producing energy-rich chemicals. Besides, the mixture gas inlet velocity, operating pressure and CO_2/CH_4 feeding ratio were crucial to determining the efficiency of CO_2 utilization to solar fuels. Catalytic CO_2-reforming of CH_4 to chemical energy is a promising strategy for an efficient utilization of CO_2 as a renewable carbon source.

Heat transfer and friction factor of Therminol liquid phase heat transfer fluid in a ribbed tube

Experiments and simulations on flow and heat transfer behavior of Therminol-55 liquid phase heat transfer fluid have been conducted in a ribbed tube with the outer diameter and inner diameter 25.0 and 20.0 mm,pitch and rib height of 4.5 and 1.0 mm.respectively.Experimental results show that the heat transfer and thermal performance of Therminol-55 liquid phase heat transfer fluid in the ribbed tube are considerably improved compared to those of the smooth tube.The Nusselt number increase with the increase of Reynolds number.The increase in heat transfer rate of the ribbed tube has a mean value of 2.24 times.Also,the pressure drop results reveal that the average friction factor of the ribbed tube is in a range of 2.4 and 2.8 times over the smooth tube.Numerical simulations of three-dimensional flow behavior of Therminol-55 liquid phase heat transfer fluid are carried out using three different turbulence models in the ribbed tube.The numerical results show that the heat transfer of ribbed tube is improved because vortices are generated behind ribs,which produce some disruptions to fluid flow and enhance heat transfer compared with smooth tube.The numerical results prove that the ribbed tube can improve heat transfer and fluid flow performances of Therminol liquid phase heat transfer fluid.

Assessment of column aerosol optical properties using ground-based sun-photometer at urban Harbin, Northeast China

Aerosol plays a key role in determining radiative balance, regional climate and human health.Severe air pollution over Northeast China in recent years urges more comprehensive studies to figure out the adverse effects caused by excessive aerosols. In this study, column aerosol measurements over urban Harbin, a metropolis located at the highest latitude in Northeast China, during May 2016 to March 2017 were conducted using a CIMEL sun-photometer to analyze local aerosol properties and its variation from different aspects. According to the observations, aerosol optical depth at 440 nm（AOD_（440）） ranges from 0.07 up to 1.54, and the large variability in both AOD_（440） and Angstrom Exponent（AE_（440–870）） indicates the frequent change of aerosol types due of different emission sources. Coarse mode particles dominated Harbin during the studying period because of the long-range transported dust and probably the suspended snow crystals in winter. As the wavelength increases, relatively consistent decrease trends of single scattering albedo（SSA） and asymmetry factor（ASY） were observed in spring, autumn, and winter, indicating the presence of absorbing polluted aerosols. Mixed type（MIX） aerosol dominated the study region with a total percentage of 34%, and biomass burning and urban industry（BB/UI）, clean continental（CC）, and desert dust（DD） aerosols were found to be 31%, 27%, and 8%, respectively. The current work fills up the optical characteristics of aerosols in Harbin, and will contribute to the in-depth understanding of local aerosol variation and regional climate change over Northeast China.

Analysis of radiation heat transfer and temperature distribu- tions of solar thermochemical reactor for syngas production

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 scatter- ing, 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 approx- imation. 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.