Heat and mass transfer in a copper oxy-chloride spray reactor for thermochemical hydrogen production

A new predictive model is developed in this paper to analyze the height of the reactor for continuous production of copper oxy-chloride in the thermochemical Cu–Cl cycle for hydrogen production. The volumetric phase fraction is used to develop an energy balance and integrated spatially to determine the inlet temperature of nitrogen and steam mixtures for continuous production of copper oxy-chloride. The effects of the ratio of mixing power to mass of the suspended particle, the ratio of interfacial surface area of the gas film to the volume of liquid, and diameter of the steam/nitrogen bubble in the reactor, on the height of the reactor are reported for a production capacity of 3 kg of hydrogen per day. Results indicate that a smaller ratio of interfacial surface area to volume of liquid significantly reduces the height of the reactor.