Recent Advances and Development of Various Oxygen Carriers for the Chemical Looping Combustion Process: A Review

BaCoO2 with Tetrahedral Cobalt Coordination: The Missing Element to Understand Energy Storage and Conversion Applications in BaCoO3-δ-Based Materials

Barium-cobaltate-based perovskite (BaCoO3-δ) and barium-cobaltate-based nanocomposites have been intensively studied in energy storage and conversion devices mainly due to flexible oxygen stoichiometry and tunable nonprecious transition metal oxidation states. Although a rich and complex family of structural polymorphs has already been reported for these perovskites in the literature, the potential structural evolution that may occur during the oxygen reduction reaction and the oxygen evolution reaction has not been investigated so far. In this study, we synthesized and characterized the lowest Co-oxidation state possible in the compound, BaCoO2, which exhibits a quartz-derived, trigonal structure with a helicoidally corner-sharing, CoO4-tetrahedral-framework as already proposed by Spitsbergen et al. Oxygen can reversibly be inserted in such a crystal structure to form BaCoO3-δ, i.e., with 0 ≤ δ ≤ 1, based on the results of an in situ coupled thermogravimetric - neutron diffraction study and which presents therefore giant oxygen capacity storage due to the extreme tunability of the electronic configuration of the cobalt cations which defines the fundamental origins of the materials performance. The reversible conversion of BaCoO2 to BaCoO3-δ associated with a similar electronic conductivity above 900 K permits to clarify the high potential of BaCoO3-δ-based energy storage and conversion devices.

Investigation on the Redox Properties of a Novel Cu-Based Pr-Modified Oxygen Carrier for Chemical Looping Combustion

CO₂ levels in the atmosphere are growing as a result of the burning of fossil fuels to meet energy demands. The introduction of chemical looping combustion (CLC) as an alternative to traditional combustion by transporting oxygen emphasizes the need to develop greener and more economical energy systems. Metal oxide, also defined as an oxygen carrier (OC), transports oxygen from the air to the fuel. Several attempts are being made to develop an OC with a reasonable material cost for superior fuel conversion and high oxygen transport capacity (OTC). This study aims to synthesize a potential OC using the wet impregnation method for the CLC process. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to determine the cyclic redox properties using 5% CH₄/N₂ and air as reducing and oxidizing gases, respectively. The 10CuPA-based OC retained a high OTC of about 0.0267 mg O₂/mg of OC for 10 cycles that was higher than 10CuA-based OC. Furthermore, the oxygen transfer rate for 10CuPA-based OC was relatively higher compared to 10CuA-based OC over 10 cycles. In comparison to 10CuA-based OC, the 10CuPA-based OC presented a steady X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern after 10 redox cycles, implying that the phase was stably restored due to praseodymium-modified γ alumina support.

Pyrolysis of Mass-Selected (V2O5)NO− (N = 1−6) Clusters in a High-Temperature Linear Ion Trap Reactor

A high-temperature linear ion trap that can stably run up to 873 K was newly designed and installed into a homemade reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer coupled with a laser ablation cluster source and a quadrupole mass filter. The instrument was used to study the pyrolysis behavior of mass-selected (V2O5) NO− ( N = 1−6) cluster anions and the dissociation channels were clarified with atomistic precision. Similar to the dissociation behavior of the heated metal oxide cluster cations reported in literature, the desorption of either atomic oxygen atom or molecular O2 prevailed for the (V2O5) NO− clusters with N = 2−5 at 873 K. However, novel dissociation channels involving fragmentation of (V2O5) NO− to small-sized V xO y− anions concurrent with the release of neutral vanadium oxide species were identified for the clusters with N = 3−6. Significant variations of branching ratios for different dissociation channels were observed as a function of cluster size. The kinetic studies indicate that the dissociation rates of (V2O5) NO− monotonically increased with the increase of cluster size. The internal energies carried by the (V2O5) NO− clusters at 873 K as well as the energetics data for dissociation channels have been theoretically calculated to rationalize the experimental observations. The decomposition behavior of vanadium oxide clusters from this study can provide new insights into the pyrolysis mechanism of metal oxide nanoparticles that are widely used in high temperature catalysis.

Development of multimode gas-fired combined-cycle chemical-looping combustion-based power plant layouts

Operation of power plants with carbon dioxide capture and sequestration (CCS) and without carbon dioxide capture and storage modes and energy penalty or energy utilization in such operations is of great significance. This work reports on two gas-fired pressurized chemical-looping combustion (CLC) power plant layouts with two inbuilt modes of flue gas exit, namely, one with carbon dioxide capture mode and the second mode is letting flue gas (consists of carbon dioxide and water) without capturing carbon dioxide. Without CCS mode, the higher thermal efficiencies of 54.06 and 52.63% are obtained for natural gas and syngas, respectively. In carbon capture mode, a net thermal efficiency of 52.13% is obtained with natural gas and 48.78% with syngas. The operating pressure of the air reactor is taken to be 13 bar for realistic operational considerations, and that of the fuel reactor is 11.5 bar. Two power plant layouts were developed based on combined-cycle chemical-looping combustion (CC CLC) for natural gas and syngas fuels. A single layout is developed for two fuels with a possible retrofit for dual fuel operation. The CLC power plants can be operated with two modes of flue gas exit options, and these operational options make them higher thermal efficient power plants.

Performance of electronic waste based mixed metal oxide as novel oxygen carriers for chemical looping co-combustion of high ash coal and rice straw

Electronic waste (e-waste) is one of the major pollutants accumulated due to its huge demand and short lifespan. Hence, it is essential to reuse and extract the value added components from e-waste. In this context, firstly, a printed circuit board (PCB) is used to produce calorific valuable gases by pyrolysis and gasification reactions. Secondly, the resultant residue of PCB is combusted to extract metals such as iron, copper, nickel etc. as oxygen carriers for the chemical looping combustion (CLC) process. CLC is an emerging and appealing technology for producing rich CO₂ that can be directly sent for sequestration. In the present study, a detailed investigation is performed to ensure the reactivity of the e-waste based metal oxide with high ash coal, rice straw and their blends in the CLC process. CO₂ yield, gas conversion, and char conversion are evaluated to assess the performance of the co-combustion based CLC process. It is found that 90.9% CO₂ yield, 94.1% gas conversion and 93.2% char conversion can be obtained using the blends of coal and rice straw in the first cycle of the CLC operation. Further, a reduction of 5% to 7% of these parameters is evaluated at the end of the third consecutive cycle of CLC operations. The interaction between coal and rice straw is further studied by evaluating their synergistic effects, char-oxygen carrier interaction and kinetic parameters using a thermogravimetric analyzer under N₂ and CO₂ atmosphere. The co-combustion process has reduced the activation energy by 13.4% at 800-1000 °C under CO₂ atmosphere.