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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Nanotechnol.
Sec. Nanomaterials
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnano.2024.1502539

Estimation of extreme temperatures in direct solar methane pyrolysis within a porous medium

Provisionally accepted
Hengrui Xu Hengrui Xu Mostafa Abuseada Mostafa Abuseada Y. Sungtaek Ju Y. Sungtaek Ju R. Mitchell Spearrin R. Mitchell Spearrin Timothy S. Fisher Timothy S. Fisher *
  • University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Porous media have wide application in renewable energy conversion processes, such as solar-thermal fuels production and decarbonization. Heat transport mechanisms within porous media can be highly complex, particularly under extreme conditions encountered in concentrated solar thermal reactors in which direct measurement of temperature is challenging. Here, we implement and report an inverse heat conduction model to estimate the temperature distribution throughout a porous substrate domain in a direct solar methane pyrolysis process. By solving a two-dimensional heat transfer problem and applying an inverse optimization algorithm, we estimate the quasi-steady state spatial temperature distribution in a fibrous porous carbon substrate. The results are validated indirectly by experimentally measured graphite deposition and a simplified reaction kinetic model.

    Keywords: Solar methane pyrolysis, Porous media, Pyrolytic graphite, Finite difference method, inverse problem

    Received: 09 Oct 2024; Accepted: 27 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Xu, Abuseada, Ju, Spearrin and Fisher. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Timothy S. Fisher, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.