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ISSN Online: 2379-1748

ISBN Flash Drive: 978-1-56700-483-0

ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-482-3

4th Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference
April, 14–17, 2019 , Las Vegas, NV, USA

DESIGN, MANUFACTURING AND EXPERIMENTAL TESTING OF A SELF-CLEANING EXIT PORT MECHANISM FOR A SOLAR REACTOR

Get access (open in a dialog) pages 629-643
DOI: 10.1615/TFEC2019.emt.028516

Abstract

Carbon particle production is an added value of solar cracking of natural gas process. However, carbon particles deposit on solar reactor window, walls, and exit which reduces overall efficiency and eventually clogs the reactor. Understanding of the physics and chemistry behind carbon deposition is the ley to prevent this problem. Deposition mainly occurs due to temperature gradient near the surface making carbon particles migrate in the direction of decreasing temperature. This thermophoretic force is caused by the differences in velocity of the particles because of the differences in kinetic energy. As the warmer gas molecules with higher velocity create net force on the solid carbon particles, they move towards the surface walls and deposit. This behavior occurs per interface-chemistry which can explained by DLVO-theory. This theory combines Van der Waals forces and Electrostatic Double Layer (EDL) forces to explain the interface-chemistry between particle-wall and particle-particle when they are within the range of a few nanometers of each other. This paper presents a novel mechanism to prevent reactor clogging by simultaneous removal of carbon deposition. The design features rotational motion of a scraper to provide the shear force required to overcome the particle-particle and particle-surface interactions which then removes the agglomerated carbon particles deposition at the exit port.