Solar photocatalytic reactors parabolic trough

Figure 8 Reaction rate optical factor as a function of catalyst concentration for a parabolic trough solar photocatalytic reactor. Adapted from Arancibia-Bulnes and Cuevas 2004, with permission from Elsevier.

The MCM has been used to simulate tubular solar photocatalytic reactors, like parabolic troughs (Arancibia-Bulnes et al., 2002a), CPC (Arancibia-Bulnes et al., 2002b), and also of flat plate geometry (Cuevas et al., 2004). Also it has been used to simulate flat lamp reactors (Brucato et al., 2006) or to obtain optical coefficients by comparison with transmission results from an experimental cell (Yokota et al., 1999). 

Concentrating collectors are only able to use a limited fraction of fhe diffuse solar radiation. This utilizable fraction can be estimated as the inverse of the concentration ratio of fhe collecfor (1/Cr) (Rabl, 1985). Because of this, parabolic trough photocatalytic reactors, which have a concentration ratio around 15 or higher, miss practically all diffuse radiation. This amounts to losing around half of fhe available UV solar irradiance. 

Figure 1 Parabolic trough photocatalytic reactor at Plataforma Solar de Almerla (reprinted from Malato et al., 2007 with permission from Elsevier).

Photocatalytic destruction of chlorinated solvents in water with solar energy was investigated [436] using a nearcommercial scale, single-axis tracking parabolic trough system with a glass pipe reactor mounted at its focus. In... 

Compound parabolic collectors (CPCs) belong to the most promising photocatalytic solar reactors which combine the advantages of parabolic trough concentrator and non-concentrating system [178]. CPCs are low-concentration static collectors with reflective surface and can be designed for any given reactor shape (see Fig. 7.3a) [182]. The CPC reflectors are usually made from polished aluminum... 

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