Modeling Chemical and Thermal States of Reactive Metal Oxides in a CR5 Solar Thermochemical Heat Engine

“Sunshine to Petrol” is a grand-challenge research project at Sandia National Laboratories with the objective of creating a technology for producing feedstocks for making liquid fuels by splitting carbon dioxide (and water) using concentrated solar energy [1]. A reactor-level performance model is described for computing the solar-driven thermochemical splitting of carbon dioxide via a two-step metal-oxide cycle. The model simulates the...