Numerical Investigations of a Counter-Current Moving Bed Reactor for Thermochemical Energy Storage at High Temperatures

Nicole Carina Preisner, Inga Bürger, Michael Wokon and Marc Linder
Additional contact information
Nicole Carina Preisner: Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics, DLR, Linder Höhe, 51147 Köln, Germany
Inga Bürger: Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics, DLR, Pfaffenwaldring 38-40, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Michael Wokon: Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics, DLR, Linder Höhe, 51147 Köln, Germany
Marc Linder: Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics, DLR, Pfaffenwaldring 38-40, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-22

Abstract: High temperature storage is a key factor for compensating the fluctuating energy supply of solar thermal power plants, and thus enables renewable base load power. In thermochemical energy storage, the thermal energy is stored as the reaction enthalpy of a chemically reversible gas-solid reaction. Metal oxides are suitable candidates for thermochemical energy storage for solar thermal power plants, due to their high reaction temperatures and use of oxygen as a gaseous reaction partner. However, it is crucial to extract both sensible and thermochemical energy at these elevated temperatures to boost the overall system efficiency. Therefore, this study focuses on the combined extraction of thermochemical and sensible energy from a metal oxide and its effects on thermal power and energy density during discharging. A counter-current moving bed, based on manganese-iron-oxide, was investigated with a transient, one-dimensional model using the finite element method. A nearly isothermal temperature distribution along the bed height was formed, as long as the gas flow did not exceed a tipping point. A maximal energy density of 933 kJ/kg was achieved, when ( Mn , Fe ) 3 O 4 was oxidized and cooled from 1050 ° C to 300 ° C . However, reaction kinetics can limit the thermal power and energy density. To avoid this drawback, a moving bed reactor based on the investigated manganese-iron oxide should combine direct and indirect heat transfer to overcome kinetic limitations.

Keywords: moving bed; thermochemical energy storage; redox reaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/3/772/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/3/772/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:3:p:772-:d:318852

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().