Guo Ke, Liu Mingkai, Wang Bin, Lou Jiahui, Hao Yong, Pei Gang, Jin Hongguang
Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China; Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
Sci Bull (Beijing). 2024 Apr 30;69(8):1109-1121. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.01.028. Epub 2024 Jan 23.
Hydrogen is widely regarded as a sustainable energy carrier with tremendous potential for low-carbon energy transition. Solar photovoltaic-driven water electrolysis (PV-E) is a clean and sustainable approach of hydrogen production, but with major barriers of high hydrogen production costs and limited capacity. Steam methane reforming (SMR), the state-of-the-art means of hydrogen production, has yet to overcome key obstacles of high reaction temperature and CO emission for sustainability. This work proposes a solar thermo-electrochemical SMR approach, in which solar-driven mid/low-temperature SMR is combined with electrochemical H separation and in-situ CO capture. The feasibility of this method is verified experimentally, achieving an average methane conversion of 96.8% at a dramatically reduced reforming temperature of 400-500 °C. The underlying mechanisms of this method are revealed by an experimentally calibrated model, which is further employed to predict its performance for thermo-electrochemical hydrogen production. Simulation results show that a net solar-to-H efficiency of 26.25% could be obtained at 500 °C, which is over 11 percentage points higher than that of PV-E; the first-law thermodynamic efficiency reaches up to 63.27% correspondingly. The enhanced efficiency also leads to decreased fuel consumption and lower CO emission of the proposed solar-driven SMR system. Such complementary conversion of solar PV electricity, solar thermal energy, and low-carbon fuel provides a synergistic and efficient means of sustainable H production with potentially long-term solar energy storage on a vast scale.
氢被广泛认为是一种具有巨大潜力的可持续能源载体，在低碳能源转型方面前景广阔。太阳能光伏驱动的水电解（PV-E）是一种清洁且可持续的制氢方法，但存在制氢成本高和产能有限等主要障碍。蒸汽甲烷重整（SMR）是目前最先进的制氢方法，但在可持续性方面仍未克服反应温度高和一氧化碳排放等关键障碍。这项工作提出了一种太阳能热电化学SMR方法，其中太阳能驱动的中/低温SMR与电化学氢分离及原位一氧化碳捕集相结合。该方法的可行性通过实验得到验证，在显著降低的400-500°C重整温度下，甲烷平均转化率达到96.8%。通过实验校准的模型揭示了该方法的潜在机制，并进一步用于预测其热电化学制氢性能。模拟结果表明，在500°C时可获得26.25%的净太阳能到氢效率，比PV-E高出11个多百分点；相应地，第一定律热力学效率高达63.27%。效率的提高还导致所提出的太阳能驱动SMR系统的燃料消耗减少和一氧化碳排放降低。太阳能光伏发电、太阳能热能和低碳燃料的这种互补转换提供了一种协同高效的可持续制氢方式，具有大规模长期太阳能存储的潜力。
