Theoretical study on flow and radiation in tubular solar photocatalytic reactor

Abstract

In this paper, based on the mixture flow model, an optimized six-flux model is first established and applied to the tubular solar photocatalytic reactor. Parameters influencing photocatalyst distribution and radiation distribution at the reactor outlet, viz. catalyst concentration and circulation speed, are also analyzed. It is found that, at the outlet of the reactor, the optimized six-flux model has better performances (the energy increase by 1900% and 284%, respectively) with a higher catalyst concentration (triple) and a lower speed (one third).

Graphical abstract

Keywords

photocatalytic hydrogen photoreactor / nume- rical simulation / solar energy / flow model / radiation model

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFB1502005), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51961130386 and 51506043), the Royal Society-Newton Advanced Fellowship grant (NAF/R1/191163), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No. 2012AA051501), and the Foundation of the State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China.

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