ECLIPSE · Towards Efficient Production of Sustainable Solar Fuels

Towards Efficient Production of Sustainable Solar Fuels

With more energy from the sun striking the earth's surface in an hour than is consumed annually by fossil fuels, solar energy has the potential to provide a significant part of the required global energy, in addition to substantially reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases, a critical goal in overcoming the challenges posed by the climate change. Two of the most severe limiting factors of using solar energy are the inconsistency of the power output, due to the day/night cycle and weather conditions, and the transportation issues due to geographical location. Solar fuels, produced by combining concentrated solar energy with thermochemical processes, are a promising concept to overcome both limitations. These fuels, acting as chemical energy carriers, can be generated at suitable sites and easily transported worldwide, where they can be stored and used upon demand. Current methods for carbon-neutral solar fuels generation are based on a 2-step reduction-oxidation cycle, with each step at different pressure and temperature, thus creating technological difficulties. Moreover, the solar-to-fuel energy conversion efficiency of the best process to date is less than 6%. The main goal of this research is to develop a novel method for the solar thermochemical splitting of CO2 and H2O, achieving high solar-to-fuel energy efficiency. To do so, a unique approach utilizing high-temperature heat recovery methods was investigated. The research work included rigorous modeling of the physics, detailed characterization, and experimental work. A novel high-temperature heat recovery method was developed for the solar redox reactor, the "dual-storage solar reactor" concept. Modeling work was validated by an experimental setup that was developed and tested in a high-flux solar simulator, demonstrating heat extraction at temperatures over 1250 deg. C and with heat extraction effectiveness over 80%. This work is a significant improvement over the state-of-the-art and is paving the new for further improvement, testing, and development of new high-temperature heat recovery methods.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз