On mathematical modeling of solar hydrogen production in monolithic reactors

The hydrogen production based on the exploitation of the water splitting reaction and of solar energy on monolith type reactors is a novel and very promising process. Several trade offs between reaction efficiency and material stability appear during the operation of the process rendering necessary advanced optimization and control using appropriate mathematical models. The complexity of the geometric and operating features of the process prevents from the use of a general model for the optimization studies so a model splitting in several size scales procedure is proposed. It is shown that in case of silicon carbide as monolith material the one dimensional single channel model is the most appropriate to be used for the process operation optimization studies. The above general principles are described in detail in the present paper to shed light to the particular modeling problem with the emphasis given in the work performed in our laboratory.