A new approach for fuel injection into a solar receiver/reactor: Numerical and experimental investigation

Abstract

An innovative and efficient design of solar receivers/reactors can enhance the production of clean fuels via concentrated solar energy. This study presents a new jet-type burner nozzle for gaseous feedstock injection into a cavity solar receiver inspired from the combustion technology. The nozzle design was adapted from a combustion burner and successfully implemented into a solar receiver and studied the influence of the nozzle design on the fluid mixing and temperature distribution inside the solar receiver using a 7 kW solar simulator and nitrogen as working fluid. Finally, a thorough computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was performed and validated against the experimental results. The CFD results showed a variation of the gas flow pattern and gas mixing after the burner nozzle adaptation, which resulted an intense effect on the heat transfer inside the solar receiver.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

solar reactor / nozzle / CFD / heat transfer / mixing and recirculation

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Acknowledgment

Experimental portion of this research was funded by the Impulse Fund project # IMP/14/049 of KU Leuven. The authors also acknowledge the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) at the University of Minnesota for providing resources that contributed to the research results reported within this paper.

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