Session: 09-01 Industrial Process Heat and Waste Heat

Paper Number: 117046

117046 - Thermodynamic Analysis of a Solar Driven Particle Reactor for Paraffin Dehydrogenation 

The production of light alkanes by dehydrogenation of paraffins is a highly endothermic, catalytic process occurring at temperatures of over 500C. A decarbonized version of this process is one candidate for future sustainable production of the large quantity of light alkanes used in the plastics industry. Doing so requires a large amount of high temperature heat to be provided by a sustainable source. In the presented work, a system is described where concentrated sunlight heats supported catalyst particles, and the high temperature particles enter a counterflow bed reactor where paraffins are reacted into light alkanes and hydrogen. The particles in the system act as both a heat carrier and the reaction catalyst.

A thermodynamic analysis of the combined receiver-reactor system is performed. A coupled solution of particle-gas non-equilibrium heat transfer and reaction kinetics are solved for a 1D steady plug-counterflow reactor. As the proposed system is planned to leverage existing particle receiver designs, thermal performance of solar absorption to particles is modeled based on state-of-the-art performance metrics for demonstrated particle receiver types. The importance of factors including, particle peak temperature, ratio of mass flow rates, and residence time in the reactor are investigated for their impact on paraffin conversion ratio and system efficiency.

Presenting Author: Justin Lapp University of Maine

Presenting Author Biography: Justin Lapp is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maine. He holds a PhD from the University of Minnesota.