| dc.description.abstract | The Cu-Cl thermochemical cycle is a promising method to generate hydrogen
as a clean fuel for human use in the future. The cycle can be coupled to nuclear
reactors to supply its heat requirements. The cycle generates hydrogen by splitting
water molecules through a series of chemical reactions. Thermal management within
the cycle is crucial for improving its thermal efficiency. The cycle has an average
theoretical efficiency of around 46% without any heat recovery. The efficiency may
increase up to 74%, if all heat associated with the products of the cycle’s steps is
recycled internally. The products of the different processes that transfer heat are;
oxygen, hydrogen, and molten CuCl. The heat carried by oxygen and hydrogen can be
recovered by the use of conventional heat exchangers. However, recovering heat from
molten CuCl is very challenging due to the phase transformations that molten CuCl
undergoes, as it cools down from liquid to solid states. This thesis presents a new
model that predicts the fluid flow and heat transfer in a direct contact heat exchanger,
designed to recover the heat from molten CuCl, through the physical interaction
between CuCl droplets and air. Numerical results for the variations of temperature,
velocity, heat transfer rate, and so forth, are given for two cases of CuCl flow. The
predicted dimensions of the heat exchanger were found to be a diameter of 0.13 m,
and a height of 0.6 and 0.8 m for 1 and 0.5 mm droplet diameters, respectively. The
results obtained provide valuable insights for the equipment design and scale-up of
the Cu-Cl cycle. | en |
