Preparation of Copper-Based Oxygen Carrier Supported on Titanium Dioxide

Chemical-looping combustion is an indirect oxygen combustion strategy, considered to be the most cost-effective power generation technology with the CO2 inherently concentrated. In this process, a solid oxygen carrier is used to transfer oxygen from the air reactor to the fuel reactor, which completely isolates nitrogen in air to meet with fuels. The oxygen carriers in the combustion process are subjected to the severe environments, such as high temperatures, multi-cycle operations, and thermodynamic limitations. Thus, the preparation of an oxygen carrier with high durability and better kinetics under harsh environment could be an essential part of Chemical-looping combustion development. In this study, modified wet impregnation and co-precipitation methods have been developed. The active ingredient is copper(II) oxide, and the supporting material is either directly from titanium(IV) oxide (anatase 99%) or that prepared from other titanium resources such as titanium tetrachloride and tetrabutyl titanate. Preliminary results showed the prepared oxygen carriers functioned properly in the multi-cycles of oxidization and reduction in TGA at different temperatures. Characterization of used oxygen carriers was carried out using techniques of XRD, and SEM-EDS, which provide information for the difference between oxygen carriers from different preparation methods. Through the comparison, the oxygen carrier from the sol-gel preparation method has better dispersion and oxidation activity than those from mechanical mixing, wet-impregnation, and cox precipitation method. Moreover, towards the oxygen carrier from sol-gel method, nucleation model and diffusion models were determined at different reaction periods