The energetic performance of a liquid chemical looping cycle with solar thermal energy storage

Abstract A Liquid Chemical Looping cycle Thermal Energy Storage (LCL-TES) with a gas turbine combined cycle is assessed for two different configurations. In the first configuration, the hot gas from the LCL-TES system is transferred directly to the gas turbine, while in the second one the hot gas is heated further by an after-burner. Aspen plus software was used together with MATLAB codes to simulate the cycle for an average diurnal normal irradiance profile of Port-Augusta in South Australia, using copper oxide as the chemical looping medium. The effect of air reactor pressure, concentration ratio of the solar concentrator, conversion extent and thermal input from the after-burner on the cycle efficiency was assessed. Also reported are the solar absorption, solar to electrical efficiency, solar share, and exergy efficiency, together with their sensitivities to relevant input parameters. On this basis, the first law efficiency was estimated to be 44.9% and 50% for the cycle without and with the after-burner, with corresponding temperatures of 1200 °C and 1700 °C, respectively.