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Report on solar reactor testing and evaluationTimcal, Belguim

January 13, 2009

WP6 - Plans for Upscaling

Approaching the eve of the last year of the SOLHYCARB Consortium, this is anappropriate time to make an evaluation of the cost of erection of an up-to-date version ofthe WIS SR10 Reactor for co-production of Hydrogen and Carbon Black by solar

splitting of Methane, and for an estimate of the additional expenditure that will be neededto up-scale its performance to the maximum value.

1. The WIS SR10 Kw loop consists of the following items:1. The heliostat secondary concentrator optical system.2. The SR10 10 Kw WIS reactor.3. Testing, monitoring and data acquisition equipment4. Auxiliary equipment piping, valves, etc.

1.1. The optical system consists of one 56m2 heliostat and a 155 cm diameter, 64.1 cmfocal distance secondary concentrator mounted on an appropriate stand located on the7th floor of the Solar Tower. This equipment is part of the Solar Tower facility that canbe used by WIS personnel or by other firms, by agreement.

1.2. The SR10 reactor (Figs. 1 to 4).The following table itemizes the components of the reactor, the materials ofconstruction, the cost of labor and the cost of material (in US$), spent on thefabrication and/or item acquisition.

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Item Number Material Labor/

hrs

Total

Labor

Cost of

Material

Total

Reactor

Insulation discs 6 Zirconia 120 2 280 3 474 6 354

Reactor metal components

Shaped cylinderImpellor discsFlangesFlangesFlangesFlangeFlangesLong tubeShort tube

FlangeContainerTube ring

134221211

111

CopperCopperS.SteelS.SteelS.SteelS.SteelS.SteelS.SteelS.Steel

S.SteelS.SteelS.Steel

21211123045422014

52114Total:309

7 416 2 000 9 416

Window Disc 5 Quartz 895 895

Fluidizer 1 Perspex 28 672

Filter 1 6 640

Total 23 977

1. 3. Testing, monitoring and data acquisition equipment cost in US$

FLUKE 2625A Data Logger 3 410Varian 3900 GCS Chromatograph 19 000

Intel Pentium II ATX Computer 1 284

Toshiba Satellite A 110-195 ComputerCPU IntelMemory 512 MBHard Disc 80 GBDrives DVD Super-Multi drive

1 412

GOW-MAC 21-050 Mini Gas leak detector 1 450

IMPAC Water-cooled Pyrometer for measurement

of quartz window surface temperature

4 840

5 x SIERRA Mass-Track Mass Flow Meters 5 400

Rosemount Absolute Pressure 0-1 bar 504

Thermocouples type T, B and C 4 000

Total 41 300

1.4. Auxiliary equipment - 4 000Piping, valves, pressure gauges, rotameters,safety sensor etc.

TOTAL 69 277

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Figure 3. Schematic representation of fifth fluidizer

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Figure 4. Pulse-jet filter

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2. Estimate of envelope of performance of the STMS system using the confinedTornado flow configuration for reactor window protection

By room temperature testing we have determined that for a reactor of the size of ourSR10 prototype, transition from laminar to turbulent flow occurs at a gas flowrate of20 l/min, corresponding to an Ekman number

E= 3.413 x 10 -5 .By raising the reaction temperature to 2000K, the gas kinematic viscosity goes up bya factor of 25. The transition to turbulent flow in the same reactor at 2000K will occurat a gas flowrate of 20 x 25 = 500 l/min.

By the CET computer program, the Methane Splitting reaction at 2000K requires anenergy supply of 3.62 KW/(mol CH4, 298 K/min)At the limit of the envelope of performance of our system we may process

The requisite solar energy input would be

The above calculation is approximate since we did not account for the energy

absorbed by non reacting gas (He, N2) that flows through the reaction chamber.An experimental solar test of the capacity (~80 Kw) cannot be performed with ourpresent imaging optics system (one heliostat + secondary concentrator).

Dr A. Segal performed ray tracing calculations for a non-imaging optical systemwhich concentrates the radiation from a cluster of 8 heliostats that deliver their partlyconcentrated solar radiation to the entrance of an appropriate CPC, as described in thetables following.

The cost of the requisite CPC is estimated as $30 000 and certain changes in thereactor design will entail an additional expenditure of up to $5 000.

The total estimated expenditure for the erection of the upscaled modular STMS unitis:

$ 69 27730 0005 000

$ 104 277

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