Advances of CO₂ reforming of methane based on the solar energy storage

Thermochemical energy storage is the key technique to guarantee long term and steady supply of solar energy due to its advantages of high energy density, low heat loss as well as transportability over long distance. In this work, the development of CO₂ reforming of methane that has been applied in the solar thermochemical energy storage system was summarized. Particular emphasis was put on the studies of methane reforming catalyst, methane reforming reactor, and thermal analysis of thermochemical energy storage system. New high-efficiency catalysts and reforming reactors were the main interests of the current researches. Radiation heat loss, non-uniform temperature distribution, time-varying radiation heat flux, as well as the mismatching between energy and chemical reaction restricted the improvement of thermochemical energy storage efficiency. In order to further improve the performance of thermochemical energy storage system and establish its optimization design theory, some key questions were proposed to be answered, including the relationship between the catalytic performance and properties/structure parameters of the catalyst, the interaction mechanism of thermal radiation absorption, heat/mass transfer and thermochemical reaction characteristics of the chemical reactor, as well as the time-varying dynamic features and matching relationship with radiation heat flux of the thermochemical system.