Thermochemical energy storage is emerging as a promising seasonal thermal energy storage technology. Strontium Bromide has recently become one of the most used salt hydrates for the salt-hydrate and moist airbased open thermochemical energy storage system. This article suggests that radial flow fixed bed reactors offer advantageous configurations owing to their lower pressure drop without compromising thermal performance. Four possible configurations of radial flow fixed bed reactors, Inward flow Π-type, Inward flow Z-type, Outward flow Π-type, and Outward flow Z-type, are analyzed in detail. Energy efficiency, exergy efficiency, pressure drop, and non-dimensional constant named non-uniformity are used as performance metrics for comparing the proposed configurations with four different combinations of flow rates and aspect ratios. It is found that the type of the reactor configuration (Π-type or Z-type) has a negligible impact on the performance, with a maximum change of 4% in the energy efficiency during the hydration phase. The inward and outward flow arrangements exhibit considerable differences in performance, with inward flow having 3.5 times higher exergy efficiency than outward flow. The π-type configuration shows the highest non-uniformity of -0.22 for an aspect ratio of four, with a flow rate of 50 m3/h.
Study of Different Flow Configurations of Radial Flow Annular Reactor for Thermochemical Energy Storage
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Co-Authored with Ankush Shankar Pujari, Chandramouli Subramaniam and Sandip Kumar Saha. Proceedings of the 27th National and 5th International ISHMT-ASTFE Heat and Mass Transfer Conference December 14-17, 2023, IIT Patna, Bihar, India. pp.821-826
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