Abstract:
Sol-gel derived CuO/CuAl
2O
4, Co
3O
4/CoAl
2O
4 and Mn
2O
3/Al
2O
3 oxygen carriers were studied in a fluidized bed reactor under CO
2 atmosphere, where the oxygen release characteristics under different temperatures were focused. The mechanism function and kinetics parameters in the oxygen release were obtained from the experimental data. In the process of oxygen release, the phases of CuO and CuAl
2O
4 performing as active components decompose to Cu
2O and CuAlO
2 with O
2 generation. While, only Co
3O
4 and Mn
2O
3 can release oxygen in Co
3O
4/CoAl
2O
4 and Mn
2O
3/Al
2O
3 oxygen carriers, in which Co
3O
4 and Mn
2O
3 are respectively reduced to CoO and Mn
3O
4; and CoAl
2O
4 and Al
2O
3 perform as inert carrier. The kinetic analysis show that the oxygen release of three oxygen carriers can be described by the nucleation and nuclei growth model. This means that after O
2 release the Cu-O bond (as an example) in the oxygen carrier is broken, generates Cu
2O active sites diffusing away from the reduction centers, and comes together to form Cu
2O clusters. The mechanism function
G(x), the activation energy and the pre-exponential factor have different expressions or different values for different oxygen carriers. The activation energies in the oxygen release of CuO/CuAl
2O
4, Co
3O
4/CoAl
2O
4 and Mn
2O
3/Al
2O
3 oxygen carriers, are 226.37, 130.06 and 65.90 kJ/mol respectively; and the pre-exponential factors are 2.99×10
6 s
-1, 4.96×10
3 s
-1 and 27.37 s
-1 respectively.