IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v42y2015icp254-285.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A review on solar thermal syngas production via redox pair-based water/carbon dioxide splitting thermochemical cycles

Author

Listed:
  • Agrafiotis, Christos
  • Roeb, Martin
  • Sattler, Christian

Abstract

The high power density, ease of transportation and storage and many years of development of internal combustion engine technologies have put liquid hydrocarbon fuels at a privileged position in our energy mix. Therefore processes that use renewable energy sources to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels from H2O and CO2 are of crucial importance. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) can be employed as the only energy source for the renewable production of hydrogen from water either indirectly, e.g. by supplying the electricity for electrolysis, or directly by supplying the necessary heat for thermochemically producing hydrogen. Among the various thermochemical cycles tested so far for CSP-driven hydrogen production via water splitting (WS), those based on redox-pair oxide systems, are directly adaptable to carbon dioxide splitting (CDS) and/or combined CO2/H2O splitting for the production of CO or syngas, respectively. The acknowledgement of this fact has recently revived the interest of the scientific community on such technologies. The current article presents the development, evolution and current status of CSP-aided syngas production via such redox-pair-based thermochemical cycles. At first the various redox oxide material compositions tested for water/carbon dioxide splitting are presented and their redox chemistries are discussed. Then the selection of suitable solar reactors is addressed in conjunction with the boundary conditions imposed by the redox systems as well as the heat demands, technical peculiarities and requirements of the cycle steps. The various solar reactor concepts proposed and employed for such reactions and their current status of development are presented. Finally, topics where further work is needed for commercialization of the technology are identified and discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Agrafiotis, Christos & Roeb, Martin & Sattler, Christian, 2015. "A review on solar thermal syngas production via redox pair-based water/carbon dioxide splitting thermochemical cycles," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 254-285.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:42:y:2015:i:c:p:254-285
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2014.09.039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114008120
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rser.2014.09.039?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Agrafiotis, Christos & von Storch, Henrik & Roeb, Martin & Sattler, Christian, 2014. "Solar thermal reforming of methane feedstocks for hydrogen and syngas production—A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 656-682.
    2. Kim, Jiyong & Miller, James E. & Maravelias, Christos T. & Stechel, Ellen B., 2013. "Comparative analysis of environmental impact of S2P (Sunshine to Petrol) system for transportation fuel production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1089-1098.
    3. Graves, Christopher & Ebbesen, Sune D. & Mogensen, Mogens & Lackner, Klaus S., 2011. "Sustainable hydrocarbon fuels by recycling CO2 and H2O with renewable or nuclear energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Abanades, Stéphane & Charvin, Patrice & Flamant, Gilles & Neveu, Pierre, 2006. "Screening of water-splitting thermochemical cycles potentially attractive for hydrogen production by concentrated solar energy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(14), pages 2805-2822.
    5. Levy, Moshe & Rubin, Rachamin & Rosin, Hadassa & Levitan, Rachel, 1992. "Methane reforming by direct solar irradiation of the catalyst," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 17(8), pages 749-756.
    6. Charvin, Patrice & Abanades, Stéphane & Flamant, Gilles & Lemort, Florent, 2007. "Two-step water splitting thermochemical cycle based on iron oxide redox pair for solar hydrogen production," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1124-1133.
    7. Xiao, Lan & Wu, Shuang-Ying & Li, You-Rong, 2012. "Advances in solar hydrogen production via two-step water-splitting thermochemical cycles based on metal redox reactions," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1-12.
    8. Flechsenhar, Martin & Sasse, Christian, 1995. "Solar gasification of biomass using oil shale and coal as candidate materials," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 20(8), pages 803-810.
    9. Takeshita, Takayuki & Yamaji, Kenji, 2008. "Important roles of Fischer-Tropsch synfuels in the global energy future," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 2791-2802, August.
    10. Lapp, J. & Davidson, J.H. & Lipiński, W., 2012. "Efficiency of two-step solar thermochemical non-stoichiometric redox cycles with heat recovery," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 591-600.
    11. Tamaura, Y. & Steinfeld, A. & Kuhn, P. & Ehrensberger, K., 1995. "Production of solar hydrogen by a novel, 2-step, water-splitting thermochemical cycle," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 325-330.
    12. Lange, M. & Roeb, M. & Sattler, C. & Pitz-Paal, R., 2014. "T–S diagram efficiency analysis of two-step thermochemical cycles for solar water splitting under various process conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 298-308.
    13. Palumbo, R.D. & Larson, C.L., 1990. "Production of C from CO2 in a two-step solar process utilizing FeO and Fe3O4," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 479-487.
    14. Koumi Ngoh, Simon & Njomo, Donatien, 2012. "An overview of hydrogen gas production from solar energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(9), pages 6782-6792.
    15. Ishihara, H. & Kaneko, H. & Hasegawa, N. & Tamaura, Y., 2008. "Two-step water-splitting at 1273–1623K using yttria-stabilized zirconia-iron oxide solid solution via co-precipitation and solid-state reaction," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 1788-1793.
    16. Gokon, Nobuyuki & Hasegawa, Tomoki & Takahashi, Shingo & Kodama, Tatsuya, 2008. "Thermochemical two-step water-splitting for hydrogen production using Fe-YSZ particles and a ceramic foam device," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1407-1416.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yadav, Deepak & Banerjee, Rangan, 2016. "A review of solar thermochemical processes," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 497-532.
    2. Christopher L. Muhich & Brian D. Ehrhart & Ibraheam Al-Shankiti & Barbara J. Ward & Charles B. Musgrave & Alan W. Weimer, 2016. "A review and perspective of efficient hydrogen generation via solar thermal water splitting," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(3), pages 261-287, May.
    3. Agrafiotis, Christos & von Storch, Henrik & Roeb, Martin & Sattler, Christian, 2014. "Solar thermal reforming of methane feedstocks for hydrogen and syngas production—A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 656-682.
    4. Rhodes, Nathan R. & Bobek, Michael M. & Allen, Kyle M. & Hahn, David W., 2015. "Investigation of long term reactive stability of ceria for use in solar thermochemical cycles," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 924-931.
    5. Daphne Oudejans & Michele Offidani & Achilleas Constantinou & Stefania Albonetti & Nikolaos Dimitratos & Atul Bansode, 2022. "A Comprehensive Review on Two-Step Thermochemical Water Splitting for Hydrogen Production in a Redox Cycle," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-24, April.
    6. Stéphane Abanades, 2022. "Redox Cycles, Active Materials, and Reactors Applied to Water and Carbon Dioxide Splitting for Solar Thermochemical Fuel Production: A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-28, September.
    7. Song, Lee-hwa & Kang, Hyun Woo & Park, Seung Bin, 2012. "Thermally stable iron based redox catalysts for the thermo-chemical hydrogen generation from water," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 313-320.
    8. Mao, Yanpeng & Gao, Yibo & Dong, Wei & Wu, Han & Song, Zhanlong & Zhao, Xiqiang & Sun, Jing & Wang, Wenlong, 2020. "Hydrogen production via a two-step water splitting thermochemical cycle based on metal oxide – A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    9. Koepf, E. & Alxneit, I. & Wieckert, C. & Meier, A., 2017. "A review of high temperature solar driven reactor technology: 25years of experience in research and development at the Paul Scherrer Institute," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 620-651.
    10. Villafán-Vidales, H.I. & Arancibia-Bulnes, C.A. & Riveros-Rosas, D. & Romero-Paredes, H. & Estrada, C.A., 2017. "An overview of the solar thermochemical processes for hydrogen and syngas production: Reactors, and facilities," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 894-908.
    11. Wang, Wanrong & Ma, Yingjie & Maroufmashat, Azadeh & Zhang, Nan & Li, Jie & Xiao, Xin, 2022. "Optimal design of large-scale solar-aided hydrogen production process via machine learning based optimisation framework," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    12. Kong, Hui & Kong, Xianghui & Wang, Jian & Zhang, Jun, 2019. "Thermodynamic analysis of a solar thermochemical cycle-based direct coal liquefaction system for oil production," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1279-1287.
    13. Orhan, Mehmet F. & Babu, Binish S., 2015. "Investigation of an integrated hydrogen production system based on nuclear and renewable energy sources: Comparative evaluation of hydrogen production options with a regenerative fuel cell system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 801-820.
    14. Guo, Yongpeng & Chen, Jing & Song, Hualong & Zheng, Ke & Wang, Jian & Wang, Hongsheng & Kong, Hui, 2024. "A review of solar thermochemical cycles for fuel production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 357(C).
    15. Nzihou, Ange & Flamant, Gilles & Stanmore, Brian, 2012. "Synthetic fuels from biomass using concentrated solar energy – A review," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 121-131.
    16. Mohsen Fallah Vostakola & Babak Salamatinia & Bahman Amini Horri, 2022. "A Review on Recent Progress in the Integrated Green Hydrogen Production Processes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-41, February.
    17. Gabriel Zsembinszki & Aran Solé & Camila Barreneche & Cristina Prieto & A. Inés Fernández & Luisa F. Cabeza, 2018. "Review of Reactors with Potential Use in Thermochemical Energy Storage in Concentrated Solar Power Plants," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-23, September.
    18. Cabeza, Luisa F. & Solé, Aran & Fontanet, Xavier & Barreneche, Camila & Jové, Aleix & Gallas, Manuel & Prieto, Cristina & Fernández, A. Inés, 2017. "Thermochemical energy storage by consecutive reactions for higher efficient concentrated solar power plants (CSP): Proof of concept," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(P1), pages 836-845.
    19. Yilmaz, Fatih & Balta, M. Tolga & Selbaş, Reşat, 2016. "A review of solar based hydrogen production methods," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 171-178.
    20. Xiao, Lan & Wu, Shuang-Ying & Li, You-Rong, 2012. "Advances in solar hydrogen production via two-step water-splitting thermochemical cycles based on metal redox reactions," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1-12.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:42:y:2015:i:c:p:254-285. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.