| KEYWORD |
Chemical looping processes experimental and modeling for the synthetic gas production through a concentrated solar thermal dish
keywords CHEMICAL LOOPING, CONCENTRATING SOLAR POWER, EXPERIMENTAL ACTIVITY, MODELING, RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
Reference persons DAVIDE PAPURELLO
Research Groups Energy Center Lab
Thesis type EXPERIMENTAL / DEVELOPMENT
Description The energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies is an inevitable and irreversible process. The energy crisis and the consequent adaptation of the global energy structure have promoted the development of renewable energies, in particular solar energy. The latter has received much more attention because of its unlimited and ecological characteristics: the Sun will continue to shine for billions of years and this is why solar energy, in addition to being abundant and well distributed, is also inexhaustible in our scale of time. As a consequence of the gradual depletion of fossil fuels, combined dissociation processes of CO2 and H2O have been developed and perfected, for the production of synthetic gas (syngas), based on the exploitation of solar heat and non-stoichiometric cerium oxide. The latter has established itself as a reference redox material for the realization of two-phase thermochemical cycles and the consequent generation of sustainable fuels. Molecular gaseous hydrogen is, in fact, a clean fuel with a higher energy content per unit of mass than all other fuels [1], but it is not a primary resource, unlike fossil fuels, extracted from natural deposits: this means that to generate hydrogen from water by electrochemical or thermochemical means it will be necessary to spend energy. The energy sources used to produce syngas play a fundamental role: using a synthetic gas deriving from methane and other carbon-containing substances as fuel does not offer any advantage in terms of environmental impact, as the process would entail the generation of the same amount of CO2 produced by burning directly the mixture of hydrocarbons. The perspective completely changes if an abundant, renewable and non-polluting source of energy such as solar is used. In collaboration with the Energy Center Lab of Turin, a direct coupling will be created between a CSP system and a ceramic receiver, with the aim, in particular, of analyzing the behaviour and the main parameters of the system to understand its effective effectiveness and feasibility. Attention is focused on solar devices, necessary to provide high-temperature heat for the process mentioned above, and on current technologies for converting solar energy into high-quality fuels. The overall idea is to provide a useful forecasting model that allows you to make a realistic estimate of the system's producibility for the different periods of the year. Such a solution appears reasonable given the perennial repetition of the seasons which, unless sudden and unpredictable temperature variations due to climate change, punctually and cyclically show the same trends of global radiation and temperature, maximum and minimum, depending on the location considered. A theoretical forecast of the most relevant process parameters has the aim of simplifying and facilitating the future development of an alternative and promising production technology such as the one proposed, waiting to be implemented on a large scale.
Deadline 01/03/2021
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