Using Low-Cost Iron-Based Materials as Oxygen Carriers for Chemical Looping Combustion

Journal article, 2011

In chemical looping combustion with solid fuels, the oxygen-carrier lifetime is expected to be shorter than with gaseous fuels. Therefore, it is particularly important to use low-cost oxygen carriers in solid fuel applications. Apart from being cheap, these oxygen carriers should be able to convert the CO and H2 produced from the solid fuel gasification and be sufficiently hard to withstand fragmentation. Several low-cost iron-based materials displayed high conversion of syngas and high mechanical strength and can be used for further development of the technology. These materials include oxide scales from Sandvik and Scana and an iron ore from LKAB. All tested oxygen carriers showed higher gas conversion than a reference sample, the mineral ilmenite. Generally, softer oxygen carriers were more porous and appeared to have a higher reactivity towards syngas. When compared with ilmenite, the conversion of CO was higher for all oxygen carriers and the conversion of H2 was higher when tested for longer reduction times. The oxygen carrier Sandvik 2 displayed the highest conversion of syngas and was therefore selected for solid fuel experiments. The conversion rate of solid fuels was higher with Sandvik 2 than with the reference sample, ilmenite.