Heat and mass transfer modeling of high-temperature moving-bed thermochemical reactors

Author

David Korba, Mississippi State UniversityFollow

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9139-373X

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Li, Like

Committee Member

Priddy, Matthew

Committee Member

AuYeung, Nick

Committee Member

Cho, Heejin

Committee Member

Bhushan, Shanti

Date of Degree

8-8-2023

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Mechanical Engineering

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D)

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

With the global deployment of renewable energy generation at record rates, clean energy is steadily becoming competitive with its fossil-fuel counterparts. However, further expansion is limited by the inherent intermittency of renewable energy sources (solar, wind, wave, etc.), which typically do not match with daily and seasonal variations of global (and local) energy demand. Thermochemical energy storage (TCES) has demonstrated strong potential in being a technological pathway to provide on-demand process heat and handle the intrinsic variations in renewable energy generation and energy demand. TCES works on the premise of excess renewable heat driving an endothermic reduction reaction, in which thermal energy is converted to chemical potential energy. The reversed exothermic oxidation reaction is subsequently triggered (on-demand) to recover thermal energy which can be used as process heat.

While the benefits of TCES have been demonstrated experimentally at the lab-scale, accurate numerical modeling of TCES reactors is key for future development, optimization, and implementation of large industrial-scale energy storage systems. This dissertation focuses on the development of continuum-scale models to accurately simulate and predict performance of high temperature (up to 1500 °C) moving-bed reactors for TCES. The efficacy of present volume- averaging approaches is briefly reviewed, with the major focus of the work on the development of multi-dimensional multi-physics models of increasing complexity for moving-bed TCES reduction and oxidation reactors.

Recommended Citation

Korba, David, "Heat and mass transfer modeling of high-temperature moving-bed thermochemical reactors" (2023). Theses and Dissertations. 5904.
https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td/5904