Examples of Solar Thermal Fuel Production

Author(s):  
Christian Sattler ◽  
Hans Mu¨ller-Steinhagen ◽  
Martin Roeb ◽  
Dennis Thomey ◽  
Martina Neises

The conversion of renewable energy especially solar energy into versatile fuels is a key technology for an innovative and sustainable energy economy. To finally benefit from solar fuels they have to be produced with high efficiencies and low to no greenhouse gas emissions in large quantities. The final goal will most probably be the carbon free fuel hydrogen. But the main challenge is its market introduction. Therefore a strategy incorporating transition steps has to be developed. Solar thermal processes have the potential to be amongst the most efficient alternatives for large scale solar fuel production in the future. Therefore high temperature solar technologies are under development for the different development steps up to the final goal of carbon free hydrogen. This paper discusses the strategy based on the efficiencies of the chosen solar processes incorporating carbonaceous materials for a fast market introduction and processes based on water splitting for long term solar hydrogen generation. A comparison with the most common industrial processes shall demonstrate which endeavors have to be done to establish solar fuels.

Solar Energy ◽  
2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Sattler ◽  
Martin Roeb ◽  
Nathalie Monnerie ◽  
Daniela Graf ◽  
Stephan Mo¨ller

The potential of hydrogen to be the energy carrier of the future is widely accepted. Today more than 90% of hydrogen is produced by cost effective technologies from fossil sources mainly by steam reforming of natural gas and coal gasification. But hydrogen is not important as an energy carrier yet — it is mainly a chemical. To finally benefit from hydrogen as a fuel it has to be produced greenhouse gas free in large quantities. Therefore these two tasks have to be connected by a strategy incorporating transition steps. Solar thermal processes have the potential to be the most effective alternatives for large scale hydrogen production in the future. Therefore high temperature solar technologies are under development for the different steps on the stair to renewable hydrogen. This paper discusses the strategy based on the efficiencies of the chosen solar processes incorporating carbonaceous materials as well as processes based on water splitting. And the availability of the technologies. A comparison with the most common industrial processes shall demonstrate which endeavors have to be done to establish renewable hydrogen as a fuel.


Joule ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yosuke Goto ◽  
Takashi Hisatomi ◽  
Qian Wang ◽  
Tomohiro Higashi ◽  
Kohki Ishikiriyama ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (45) ◽  
pp. 23406-23433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amene Naseri ◽  
Morasae Samadi ◽  
Ali Pourjavadi ◽  
Alireza Z. Moshfegh ◽  
Seeram Ramakrishna

Analyzing the commercialization potential of g-C3N4photocatalysts for solar H2generation from an economic viewpoint and for large-scale production.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vikram Rama Uttam Pandit

Sustainable development of the world is mainly dependent on the use of present energy resources, which primarily includes water, wind, solar, geothermal, and nuclear power. Hydrogen as a clean and green energy source can be the resolution of the energy challenge and may satisfy the demands of several upcoming generations. Hydrogen when used it does not produce any type of pollutant and this makes it a best candidate as a clean energy. Hydrogen energy can be generated from natural gas, oil, biomass, and fossil fuels using thermochemical, photocatalytic, microbiological and electrolysis processes. Large scale hydrogen production is also testified up to some extent with proper engineering for multi applications. Alas, storage and transportation of hydrogen are the main challenge amongst scientific community. Photocatalytic hydrogen production with good efficiencies and amount is well discussed. Till date, using a variety of metal oxide-sulfide, carbon-based materials, metal organic frameworks are utilized by doping or with their composites for enhance the hydrogen production. Main intents of this chapter are to introduce all the possible areas of hydrogen applications and main difficulties of hydrogen transportation, storage and achievements in the hydrogen generation with its applications.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias May ◽  
Kira Rehfeld

Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut to limit global warming to 1.5-2C above preindustrial levels. Yet the rate of decarbonisation is currently too low to achieve this. Policy-relevant scenarios therefore rely on the permanent removal of CO<sub>2</sub> from the atmosphere. However, none of the envisaged technologies has demonstrated scalability to the decarbonization targets for the year 2050. In this analysis, we show that artificial photosynthesis for CO<sub>2</sub> reduction may deliver an efficient large-scale carbon sink. This technology is mainly developed towards solar fuels and its potential for negative emissions has been largely overlooked. With high efficiency and low sensitivity to high temperature and illumination conditions, it could, if developed towards a mature technology, present a viable approach to fill the gap in the negative emissions budget.<br>


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias May ◽  
Kira Rehfeld

Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut to limit global warming to 1.5-2C above preindustrial levels. Yet the rate of decarbonisation is currently too low to achieve this. Policy-relevant scenarios therefore rely on the permanent removal of CO<sub>2</sub> from the atmosphere. However, none of the envisaged technologies has demonstrated scalability to the decarbonization targets for the year 2050. In this analysis, we show that artificial photosynthesis for CO<sub>2</sub> reduction may deliver an efficient large-scale carbon sink. This technology is mainly developed towards solar fuels and its potential for negative emissions has been largely overlooked. With high efficiency and low sensitivity to high temperature and illumination conditions, it could, if developed towards a mature technology, present a viable approach to fill the gap in the negative emissions budget.<br>


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 3437
Author(s):  
Andreas Rosenstiel ◽  
Nathalie Monnerie ◽  
Jürgen Dersch ◽  
Martin Roeb ◽  
Robert Pitz-Paal ◽  
...  

Global trade of green hydrogen will probably become a vital factor in reaching climate neutrality. The sunbelt of the Earth has a great potential for large-scale hydrogen production. One promising pathway to solar hydrogen is to use economically priced electricity from photovoltaics (PV) for electrochemical water splitting. However, storing electricity with batteries is still expensive and without storage only a small operating capacity of electrolyser systems can be reached. Combining PV with concentrated solar power (CSP) and thermal energy storage (TES) seems a good pathway to reach more electrolyser full load hours and thereby lower levelized costs of hydrogen (LCOH). This work introduces an energy system model for finding cost-optimal designs of such PV/CSP hybrid hydrogen production plants based on a global optimization algorithm. The model includes an operational strategy which improves the interplay between PV and CSP part, allowing also to store PV surplus electricity as heat. An exemplary study for stand-alone hydrogen production with an alkaline electrolyser (AEL) system is carried out. Three different locations with different solar resources are considered, regarding the total installed costs (TIC) to obtain realistic LCOH values. The study shows that a combination of PV and CSP is an auspicious concept for large-scale solar hydrogen production, leading to lower costs than using one of the technologies on its own. For today’s PV and CSP costs, minimum levelized costs of hydrogen of 4.04 USD/kg were determined for a plant located in Ouarzazate (Morocco). Considering the foreseen decrease in PV and CSP costs until 2030, cuts the LCOH to 3.09 USD/kg while still a combination of PV and CSP is the most economic system.


2020 ◽  
pp. 267-276
Author(s):  
Wei Xun ◽  
Yongjie Wang ◽  
Ronglei Fan ◽  
Qiaoqiao Mu ◽  
Sheng Ju ◽  
...  

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