Design of a Compact Ceramic High-Temperature Heat Exchanger and Chemical Decomposer for Hydrogen Production

Authors

Valery Ponyavin, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Yitung Chen, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Taha MohamedFollow
Mohamed Trabia, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Anthony Hechanova, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Merrill Wilson, Ceramatec, Inc.Follow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-13-2012

Publication Title

Heat Transfer Engineering

Volume

33

Issue

10

First page number:

853

Last page number:

870

Abstract

This article describes a compact silicon carbide ceramic, high-temperature heat exchanger for hydrogen production in the sulfur iodine thermochemical cycle, and in particular, to be used as the sulfuric acid decomposer. In this cycle, hot helium from a nuclear reactor is used to heat the SI (sulfuric acid) feed components (H₂O, H₂SO₄, SO₃) to obtain appropriate conditions for the SI decomposition reaction. The inner walls of the SI decomposer channels are coated with platinum to catalytically decompose sulfur trioxide into sulfur dioxide and oxygen. Hydrodynamic, thermal, and the sulfur trioxide decomposition reaction were coupled for numerical modeling. Thermal results of this analysis are exported to perform a probabilistic mechanical failure analysis. This article presents the approach used in modeling the chemical decomposition of sulfur trioxide. Stress analysis of the design is also presented. The second part of the article shows the results of parametric study of the baseline design (linear channels). Several alternate designs of the chemical decomposer channels are also explored. The current study summarizes the results of the parametric calculations whose objective is to maximize the sulfur trioxide decomposition by using various channel geometries within the decomposer. Based on these results, a discussion of the possibilities for improving the productivity of the design is also given.

Keywords

Ceramics; Heat exchangers – Design and construction; Hydrogen as fuel; Silicon carbide; Sulfuric acid

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or use interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the article. Publisher copyright policy allows author to archive post-print (author’s final manuscript). When post-print is available or publisher policy changes, the article will be deposited

Publisher Citation

Design of a Compact Ceramic High-Temperature Heat Exchanger and Chemical Decomposer for Hydrogen Production Valery Ponyavin, Yitung Chen, Taha Mohamed, Mohamed Trabia, Anthony E. Hechanova, Merrill Wilson Heat Transfer Engineering Vol. 33, Iss. 10, 2012

Repository Citation

Ponyavin, V., Chen, Y., Mohamed, T., Trabia, M., Hechanova, A., Wilson, M. (2012). Design of a Compact Ceramic High-Temperature Heat Exchanger and Chemical Decomposer for Hydrogen Production. Heat Transfer Engineering, 33(10), 853-870.