Biomimetic deep-sea fish micro-nanosphere porous media carriers for enhancing the degree of reaction and efficiency of solar thermochemistry

The porous medium serves as a light energy receiver and catalyst carrier for direct solar thermochemical hydrogen production. Improving its absorption rate can directly increase the final solar thermochemical efficiency. Guided by biomimetic thinking and inspired by the micro-nano structure of the skin of deep-sea fish with ultra-high absorption rate, the research proposes a biomimetic micro-nanosphere porous medium. The aim is to directly increase the surface absorptivity of the porous medium, thus achieving an increase in the thermochemical energy storage efficiency. The research result shows that the proposed structure achieves a vertical incidence absorptivity of 99.15% in the simulation, which is an improvement of 15.90%. The multi-angle absorptivity reaches 89.16%, which is an improvement of 15.99%. Moreover, it is experimentally found that the absorptivity of the etched out flat plate with micro-nano structure reaches 98.35%. In terms of solar thermochemistry, with the proposed structure, the solar absorptivity can be increased by 10.80%, methane conversion can be increased by 2.68%, and fuel efficiency can be increased by 2.29%. The biomimetic thought guide can provide new ideas for porous media design. And the proposed biomimetic structure promotes the industrialization of solar thermochemical energy storage applications.