Coal chemical-looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU) using a Cu-based oxygen carrier derived from natural minerals

Abstract

Chemical-looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU) is considered a promising technology to burn solid fuels with improved CO2 capture and has the potential to improve fuel conversion and reaction rates. Cu-based oxygen carriers (Cu-OC) are often used in solid fuel CLOU. This study focused on investigating Cu-OC derived from a natural mineral for solid fuel CLOU because of their potentially lower cost compared to synthetic OCs. Reactivity and recyclability of a natural ore-derived Cu-OC on coal char (Powder River Basin sub-bituminous coal) were studied at 900◦C in Ar and air using TGA-QMS and fixed-bed reactor-QMS for five cycles. Cu-OC was prepared by simply heating chalcopyrite in air. Chalcopyrite is one of the principle copper sulfide ores and one of the primary ores for copper. The prepared Cu-OC had primarily CuO and CuFe2O4 (CuOFe2O3) as active compounds based on XRD analysis and an oxygen capacity 3.3% from oxygen uncoupling. The carbon conversion efficiency Xc was 0.94 for reduction at a ratio of Cu-OC to char φ = 75 and the product gas was primarily CO2 with trace O2. The reactivities and the rates were similar for five redox cycles. These results indicate that the natural ore-derived material with low cost has potential as a competitive oxygen carrier in solid fuel CLOU based on its reactivity in this study.