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1 kW(chem), 15kW(chem), and 320kW(chem) Systems
From the early 1970s up until the mid 1980s, path-finding original work on the solar ammonia concept has been undertaken at the ANU by Carden, Williams, Kaneff and colleagues. This work culminated on the experimental side in the establishment of a "Mark-I" laboratory, which has been moved and re-assembled in 1989 by Lovegrove and finally extended in 1994 by Luzzi and co-workers to include solar operation.
In addition to a 20 m2 paraboloidal dish solar concentrator, the "Mark-II" solar ammonia laboratory comprises the following key equipment:
- Packed-bed twin-tube reactor for electric ammonia dissociation at 1 kW(chem).
- Packed-bed tube-in-tube reactor for solar ammonia dissociation at up to 2 kW(chem).
- Thin-walled packed-bed tubular reactor for ammonia synthesis at up to 1 kW(chem), with the reactor housed in a cold-walled pressure vessel with water-cooling jacket.
- Two 20 litre and one 10 litre pressure vessel storage containers.
- Ammonia chiller / separator.
- Various high-pressure equipment for pumping and circulation, for measurement and control of temperature, mass flow and pressure and for gas analysis.
- Data acquisition and analysis software as well as hardware.
15kW(chem) Closed Loop
The existing 1 kW(chem) closed-loop system is being scaled-up to a level of 15 kW(chem), with the reactor designs being of a top-hat cavity receiver with a cylindrical arrangement of directly-irradiated reactor tubes for solar ammonia dissociation and a tube-bundle reactor for ammonia synthesis housed in the cold-walled pressure vessel.
320kW(chem) Pilot Plant
Preliminary investigations of the techno-economic viability of a solar ammonia dissociation system based on ANU's 400 m2 "Big-Dish" have encouraged to consider such a project as the next step towards pre-commercialisation.
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Last modified May 20, 1999
For further information please contact stg@faceng.anu.edu.au
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