Analysis And Enhancement Of Photocatalytic Reduction Of Carbon Dioxide In Optical Fiber Monolith Reactor

Energy shortage and global warming are two major challenges for human society.Photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide to produce methanol is a promising way to curb greenhouse gas emissions and alleviate energy shortage,which has attracted wide attention in recent years.In order to improve the concentration of carbon dioxide products in photocatalytic reduction reaction,a novel reactor structure that the transparent glass balls are added to the traditional optical fiber monolith reactor was proposed.The surface of the transparent glass balls is uniformly coated with a thin layer of photocatalyst to absorb photons.Physical model,fluid flow model,reaction dynamics model and light intensity distribution model were established for numerical simulation on the basis of the traditional model.Firstly,numerical experiments are carried out on the traditional optical fiber monolith reactor.The results are consistent with the experimental data which ensures the reliability of the numerical simulation method.Based on the traditional model,the effect of adding transparent glass balls coated with photocatalyst on the performance of the reactor was studied.The influences of the number,positions,circles and layers of transparent glass ballson the concentration of photocatalytic reaction products are analyzed.The results show that the methanol concentration increases with the number of balls in the new model.The closer the transparent glass sphere is to the fiber and the inlet,the higher the methanol production is.With the increase of circle number and layer number,methanol concentration also increases.For the multi-layer and multi-circle model,the average methanol concentration at the outlet of the 3-circle and 5-layer model is 11.43%higher than that of the traditional model.Considering the comprehensive evaluation of various performance indicators,adding 3-circles and 5-layers of transparent glass balls to the optical fiber monolith reactor is the optimal choice for photocatalytic reduction of CO2.