Solar reactor to produce fuel from water and carbon dioxide
A solar reactor derived by a team from Caltech (California Institute of Technology), ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute, could assist the thermo-chemical production of fuels.In a paper published in the journal Science, the researchers claim that fuel can be generated over 500 cycles. Solar to fuel efficiencies of 0.7-0.8 per cent were achieved. The basis for the system is a thermo-chemical cycle that disassociated water and carbon dioxide using nonstoichiometric ceria. It is designed to concentrate solar radiation and heating ranges from 1,420-1,6408C. This strips oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide and water, while forming CO and hydrogen respectively. According to the scientists this represents an attractive path to solar fuel production at high rates and efficiencies. Cerium oxide has emerged as a highly attractive redox active material choice because it shows rapid fuel production kinetics and high selectivity. However, to date these studies have been limited to bench-top demonstrations and an assessment of cyclability has been limited. Now, it has been demonstrated that high-rate solar fuel production can be achieved without the need for complex material microstructures and/or system design. The conversion efficiency obtained is about two orders of magnitude greater than was achieved with state-of-the-art photocatalytic approaches. It was also found that the efficiency and cycling rates in the reactor were limited largely by thermal losses and so the team anticipates that reactor optimisation and system integration will result in significant increases in efficiency and fuel production rates. More info
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