Numerical analysis of hydrogen production via methane steam reforming in porous media solar thermochemical reactor using concentrated solar irradiation as heat source

• H2 production by hybrid solar energy and methane steam reforming is analyzed.
• MCRT and FVM coupling method is used for chemical reaction in solar porous reactor.
• LTNE model is used to study the solid phase and fluid phase thermal performance.
• Modified P1 approximation programmed by UDFs is used for irradiative heat transfer.

The calorific value of syngas can be greatly upgraded during the methane steam reforming process by using concentrated solar energy as heat source. In this study, the Monte Carlo Ray Tracing (MCRT) and Finite Volume Method (FVM) coupling method is developed to investigate the hydrogen production performance via methane steam reforming in porous media solar thermochemical reactor which includes the mass, momentum, energy and irradiative transfer equations as well as chemical reaction kinetics. The local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) model is used to provide more temperature information. The modified P1 approximation is adopted for solving the irradiative heat transfer equation. The MCRT method is used to calculate the sunlight concentration and transmission problems. The fluid phase energy equation and transport equations are solved by Fluent software. The solid phase energy equation, irradiative transfer equation and chemical reaction kinetics are programmed by user defined functions (UDFs). The numerical results indicate that concentrated solar irradiation on the fluid entrance surface of solar chemical reactor is highly uneven, and temperature distribution has significant influence on hydrogen production.