DEVELOPMENT OF CuO-Fe2O3 MIXED METAL OXIDE OXYGEN CARRIER FROM LAB SCALE TO COMMERCIAL SCALE: BENCH SCALE FLUIDIZED BED TESTS AND PILOT SCALE (50 KWTH ) CHEMICAL LOOPING COMBUSTION (CLC) TESTS WITH METHANE/AIR

摘要

Development of efficient oxygen carriers is essential to successfully operate a chemical looping combustion (CLC) system. Various oxygen carriers composed of metal oxides and supports (1) have been tested with gaseous methane or coal as fuels. Iron-based oxygen carriers have been extensively studied for the CLC process. Iron oxides have shown sufficient activity among transition metal oxides, but reactivity must be improved for iron oxides to be viable for a commercial CLC process. CuO has several promising features including high reactivity and favorable thermodynamic properties for complete conversion of gaseous hydrocarbon fuels. However, pure CuO has a fairly low melting point, which may introduce severe particle agglomeration and surface sintering during multiple CLC reaction cycles. In addition, lab-scale carrier preparation procedures must be scalable to commercial quantities.