Solar-Driven Thermochemical Production of Sustainable Liquid Fuels from H2O and CO2 in a Heliostat Field
Abstract
The technology presented has as main goal to produce for the first time fuels from concentrated sunlight, water and carbon dioxide under real-world conditions and to promote the technology to a readiness level of 5. For this purpose, a solar fuel research facility comprising a high-flux solar concentrating heliostat field and tower, a solar thermochemical reactor system, and a gas-to-liquid conversion plant have been installed at a sunny site. Ceria is used as the reactive material, which undergoes a temperature and pressure swing in a redox cycle, splitting water and carbon dioxide into hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This synthesis gas is then converted into hydrocarbons via a Fischer-Tropsch conversion plant. The customized heliostat field has been able to provide irradiances above 3000 kW/m2 onto the aperture of the 50kW reactor, producing up to 300 l/hour solar syngas subsequently converted into liquid fuel.