Performance assessment of solar-driven integrated Mg-Cl cycle for hydrogen production

The present study develops a new solar energy system integrated with a Mg-Cl thermochemical cycle for hydrogen production and analyzes it both energetically and exergetically for efficiency assessment. The solar based integrated Mg-Cl cycle system considered here consists of five subsystems, such as: (i) heliostat field subsystem, (ii) central receiver subsystem, (iii) steam generation subsystem, (iv) conventional power cycle subsystem and (v) Mg-Cl subsystem. Also, the inlet and outlet energy and exergy rates of all of subsystems are calculated and illustrated accordingly. We also undertake a parametric study to investigate how the overall system performance is affected by the reference environment temperature and operating conditions. As a result, the overall energy and exergy efficiencies of the considered system are found to be 18.18% and 19.15%, respectively. The results show that the Mg-Cl cycle has good potential and attractive overall cycle efficiencies over 50%. Copyright (C) 2014, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.