Numerical investigation of hydrogen production inside a solar chemical reactor from sour natural gas

فاقد چكيده

There is ample scope for CH4 and H2S as the raw source of H2 production. CH4 and H2S splitting requires a very less energy compared to water splitting. The objective of this paper is investigation of the hydrogen production through thermal decomposition of waste gases containing CH4 and H2S inside a solar reactor. In this study a solar reactor has been applied to absorb solar power and allow it to concentrate in a graphite nozzle in the middle of reactor then transfer it to a flow reactant. The main issue from the economical standpoint is the production of valuable products hydrogen. The results show that the factor influencing H2 production is H2S to CH4 ratio feed gas. Also, the reactor temperature as a function of H2S/CH4 ratio feed gas, increase precipitously with increasing H2S/CH4 feed gas ratio due to the mildly endothermic nature of CH4 (H2S decomposition is highly endothermic). For average wall reactor temperatures higher than 1600 k, the reactor CH4 conversion reaches 100%, whilst H2S conversion reach a reasonable rate in temperatures higher than 1300 k.