Steam, dry, and steam-dry chemical looping reforming of diesel fuel in a 1kWth unit

© 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Chemical looping reforming (CLR) is a process that enables the production of syngas/H2 with CO2 capture by using oxygen carriers that prevent direct contact between the fuel and air. This work presents the experimental results obtained in a 1 kWth CLR unit using a Ni-based oxygen carrier and diesel as fuel, as a first trial for further advancement with heavier liquid fuels. The influence of the main operating conditions, such as oxygen-to-diesel molar ratio and the H2O and/or CO2 feed into the system, was analysed in both steam and dry CLR processes. In addition, the combined steam-dry CLR process enabled the production of syngas with any H2/CO molar ratio between 0.2 and 3, which resulted in a wide variety of final products during its use in Fischer-Tropsch processes. In all cases, the syngas composition was close to that given by the thermodynamic equilibrium. These results demonstrate the technical feasibility of steam, dry, and combined steam-dry reforming processes for liquid fossil fuels in a chemical looping system.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation (MICINN project ENE2011-26354, and ENE2014-56857-R), the European Regional Development (ERDF), the Government of Aragón (Spain, DGA ref. T06), and by CTGAS-ER (project OTT20130989).Peer reviewe