Feasibility of Solar Updraft Towers as Photocatalytic Reactors for Removal of Atmospheric Methane–The Role of Catalysts and Rate Limiting Steps

Yanfang Huang; Yimin Shao; Yang Bai; Qingchun Yuan; Tingzhen Ming; Philip Davies; Xiaohua Lu; Renaud de Richter; Wei Li

doi:10.3389/fchem.2021.745347

Feasibility of Solar Updraft Towers as Photocatalytic Reactors for Removal of Atmospheric Methane–The Role of Catalysts and Rate Limiting Steps

Yanfang Huang, Yimin Shao, Yang Bai, Qingchun Yuan, Tingzhen Ming, Philip Davies, Xiaohua Lu, Renaud de Richter, Wei Li^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Due to the alarming speed of global warming, greenhouse gas removal from atmosphere will be absolutely necessary in the coming decades. Methane is the second most harmful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. There is an emerging technology proposed to incorporating photocatalysis with solar updraft Towers (SUT) to remove methane from the air at a planetary scale. In this study, we present a deep analysis by calculating the potential of methane removal in relation to the dimensions and configuration of SUT using different photocatalysts. The analysis shows that the methane removal rate increases with the SUT dimensions and can be enhanced by changing the configuration design. More importantly, the low methane removal rate on conventional TiO2 photocatalyst can be significantly improved to, for example, 42.5% on a more effective Ag-doped ZnO photocatalyst in a 200 MW SUT while the photocatalytic reaction is the rate limiting step. The factors that may further affect the removal of methane, such as more efficient photocatalysts, night operation and reaction zone are discussed as possible solutions to further improve the system.

Original language	English
Article number	745347
Journal	Frontiers in Chemistry
Volume	9
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2021.745347
Publication status	Published - 10 Sept 2021

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2021 Huang, Shao, Bai, Yuan, Ming, Davies, Lu, de Richter and Li. This
is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is
permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited
and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted
academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not
comply with these terms.

Keywords

Chemistry
solar updraft
photocatalysis
non-CO2 greenhouse gases
methane
climate change

Access to Document

10.3389/fchem.2021.745347Licence: CC BY 3.0

Feasibility of Solar Updraft Towers as Photocatalytic Reactors
Copyright © 2021 Huang, Shao, Bai, Yuan, Ming, Davies, Lu, de Richter and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Final published version, 1.33 MBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

@article{eb07feb399a84f4aa660f724cb870b63,

title = "Feasibility of Solar Updraft Towers as Photocatalytic Reactors for Removal of Atmospheric Methane–The Role of Catalysts and Rate Limiting Steps",

abstract = "Due to the alarming speed of global warming, greenhouse gas removal from atmosphere will be absolutely necessary in the coming decades. Methane is the second most harmful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. There is an emerging technology proposed to incorporating photocatalysis with solar updraft Towers (SUT) to remove methane from the air at a planetary scale. In this study, we present a deep analysis by calculating the potential of methane removal in relation to the dimensions and configuration of SUT using different photocatalysts. The analysis shows that the methane removal rate increases with the SUT dimensions and can be enhanced by changing the configuration design. More importantly, the low methane removal rate on conventional TiO2 photocatalyst can be significantly improved to, for example, 42.5% on a more effective Ag-doped ZnO photocatalyst in a 200 MW SUT while the photocatalytic reaction is the rate limiting step. The factors that may further affect the removal of methane, such as more efficient photocatalysts, night operation and reaction zone are discussed as possible solutions to further improve the system.",

keywords = "Chemistry, solar updraft, photocatalysis, non-CO2 greenhouse gases, methane, climate change",

author = "Yanfang Huang and Yimin Shao and Yang Bai and Qingchun Yuan and Tingzhen Ming and Philip Davies and Xiaohua Lu and {de Richter}, Renaud and Wei Li",

note = "Copyright {\textcopyright} 2021 Huang, Shao, Bai, Yuan, Ming, Davies, Lu, de Richter and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.",

year = "2021",

month = sep,

day = "10",

doi = "10.3389/fchem.2021.745347",

language = "English",

volume = "9",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Feasibility of Solar Updraft Towers as Photocatalytic Reactors for Removal of Atmospheric Methane–The Role of Catalysts and Rate Limiting Steps

AU - Huang, Yanfang

AU - Shao, Yimin

AU - Bai, Yang

AU - Yuan, Qingchun

AU - Ming, Tingzhen

AU - Davies, Philip

AU - Lu, Xiaohua

AU - de Richter, Renaud

AU - Li, Wei

N1 - Copyright © 2021 Huang, Shao, Bai, Yuan, Ming, Davies, Lu, de Richter and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

PY - 2021/9/10

Y1 - 2021/9/10

N2 - Due to the alarming speed of global warming, greenhouse gas removal from atmosphere will be absolutely necessary in the coming decades. Methane is the second most harmful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. There is an emerging technology proposed to incorporating photocatalysis with solar updraft Towers (SUT) to remove methane from the air at a planetary scale. In this study, we present a deep analysis by calculating the potential of methane removal in relation to the dimensions and configuration of SUT using different photocatalysts. The analysis shows that the methane removal rate increases with the SUT dimensions and can be enhanced by changing the configuration design. More importantly, the low methane removal rate on conventional TiO2 photocatalyst can be significantly improved to, for example, 42.5% on a more effective Ag-doped ZnO photocatalyst in a 200 MW SUT while the photocatalytic reaction is the rate limiting step. The factors that may further affect the removal of methane, such as more efficient photocatalysts, night operation and reaction zone are discussed as possible solutions to further improve the system.

AB - Due to the alarming speed of global warming, greenhouse gas removal from atmosphere will be absolutely necessary in the coming decades. Methane is the second most harmful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. There is an emerging technology proposed to incorporating photocatalysis with solar updraft Towers (SUT) to remove methane from the air at a planetary scale. In this study, we present a deep analysis by calculating the potential of methane removal in relation to the dimensions and configuration of SUT using different photocatalysts. The analysis shows that the methane removal rate increases with the SUT dimensions and can be enhanced by changing the configuration design. More importantly, the low methane removal rate on conventional TiO2 photocatalyst can be significantly improved to, for example, 42.5% on a more effective Ag-doped ZnO photocatalyst in a 200 MW SUT while the photocatalytic reaction is the rate limiting step. The factors that may further affect the removal of methane, such as more efficient photocatalysts, night operation and reaction zone are discussed as possible solutions to further improve the system.

KW - Chemistry

KW - solar updraft

KW - photocatalysis

KW - non-CO2 greenhouse gases

KW - methane

KW - climate change

UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2021.745347/full

U2 - 10.3389/fchem.2021.745347

DO - 10.3389/fchem.2021.745347

M3 - Article

VL - 9

JO - Frontiers in Chemistry

JF - Frontiers in Chemistry

M1 - 745347

ER -

Feasibility of Solar Updraft Towers as Photocatalytic Reactors for Removal of Atmospheric Methane–The Role of Catalysts and Rate Limiting Steps

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this