Thermodynamic studies of a novel heat pipe evacuated tube solar collectors based integrated process for hydrogen production

In this study, the detailed thermodynamic assessment of an integrated process based on heat pipe evacuated tube solar collectors for hydrogen production is provided for more efficiently process designs. An integrated process consists of the solar heat pipe collector, photovoltaic panels, PEM electrolyzer and Linde-Hampson hydrogen liquefaction process are considered and analyzed thermodynamically for hydrogen production and liquefaction aims. The energetic and exergetic efficiencies of this integrated process are calculated as 0.2297 and 0.1955, respectively. Based on the parametric study, the effectiveness of the solar energy based integrated process is also highly dependent on the solar flux and ambient conditions.