Multiphysics well-stirred reactor modeling of coal gasification under intense thermal radiation

• Solar-driven coal gasification can store solar energy as chemical energy in fuels.
• This paper is one of the first theoretical studies on solar-driven coal gasification.
• The model includes details of finite rate gas-phase and heterogeneous chemistry and transport.
• It helps to understand the impact of solar energy flux on the overall gasification performance.
• It predicts the syngas yield and the percentage of solar energy stored in the syngas.

Gasification of carbonaceous materials using concentrated solar radiation can be an efficient and cost-effective way of supporting the endothermic reactions. To understand the effect of concentrated solar energy on the gasification process, we applied a multiphysics constant-volume well-stirred reactor model. The model considers detailed gas-phase chemistry, devolatilization kinetics, particle-phase reactions, film diffusion, pore evolution, as well as full coupling between the two phases at multiple scales for mass, species, and energy exchange. Numerical simulations were conducted using an in-house code to understand the effects of concentrated solar energy flux on conversion time, syngas yield, solar-to-fuel conversion efficiency, and solar-to-chemical enthalpy conversion percentage.