The kinetic inhibiting effect of a number of chitosans on hydrate formation was investigated using methane and methane/ethane gas mixtures.The results indicated that chitosan was a good kinetic inhibitor.The induction time of gas hydrate formation evidently increased with the degree of deacetylation （DD）,however,when DD was higher than 80%,the effect of DD on the induction time was negligible.Moreover,it was found that the molecular weight （MW） of chitosan and the addition of polyethylene oxide （PEO） had little effect on the induction time.The optimal concentration of chitosan was found to be 0.6 wt%.Finally,the mechanisms of the kinetic inhibitor on the hydrate formation were discussed.
A new approach to application of mid-and low-temperature solar thermochemical technology was in-troduced and investigated.Concentrated solar thermal energy in the range of 150―300℃ can be effi-ciently converted into high-grade solar fuel by integrating this technique with the endothermic reaction of hydrocarbons.The conversion mechanism of upgrading the low-grade solar thermal energy to high-grade chemical energy was examined based on the energy level.The new mechanism was used to integrate two novel solar thermal power systems:A solar/methanol fuel hybrid thermal power plant and a solar-hybrid combined cycle with inherent CO2 separation using chemical-looping combustion,for developing highly efficient solar energy use to generate electricity.An innovative prototype of a 5-kW solar receiver/reactor,as the key process for realizing the proposed system,was designed and manu-factured.Furthermore,experimental validation of energy conversion of the mid-and low-temperature solar thermochemical processes were conducted.In addition,a second practical and viable approach to the production of hydrogen,in combination with the novel mid-and low-temperature solar thermo-chemical process,was proposed and demonstrated experimentally in the manufactured solar re-ceiver/reactor prototype through methanol steam reforming.The results obtained here indicate that the development of mid-and low-temperature solar thermochemical technology may provide a promising and new direction to efficient utilization of low-grade solar thermal energy,and may enable step-wise approaches to cost-effective,globally scalable solar energy systems.
The reaction of CO2 reforming of CH4 has been investigated with y-A1203-supported platinum and ruthenium bimetallic catalysts, with the specific purpose of thermochemical energy storage. The catalysts were prepared by using the wetness impregnation method. The prepared catalysts were characterized by a series of physico-chemical characterization techniques such as BET surface area, thermo-gravimetric （TG）, transmission electron microscope （TEM） and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy （XPS）. In addition, the amount of carbon deposits on the surface of the catalysts and the type of the carbonaceous species were discussed by TG. It was found that the bimetallic Pt-Ru/7-A1203 catalysts exhibit both superior catalytic activity and remarkable stability by comparison of monometallic catalysts. During the 500 h stability test, the bimetallic catalyst showed a good performance at 800 ~C in CO2 reforming of CH4, exhibiting an excellent anti-carbon performance with the mass loss of less than 8.5%. The results also indicate that CO2 and CH4 have quite stable conversions of 96.0 % and 94.0 %, respectively. Also, the selectivity of the catalysts is excellent with the products ratio of CO/H2 maintaining at 1.02. Furthermore, it was found in TEM images that the active carbonaceous species were formed during the catalytic reaction, and well-distributed dot-shaped metallic particles with a relatively uniform size of about 3 nm as well as amorphous carbon structures were observed. Combined with BET, TG, TEM tests, it is concluded that the selected bimetallic catalysts can work continuously in a stable state at the high temperature, which has a potential to be utilized for the closed-loop cycle of the solar thermochemical energy storage in future industry applications.
