Chemical looping combustion kinetics

One of the most promising methods of capturing CO2 emitted by coal-fired power plants for subsequent sequestration is chemical looping combustion (CLC). A powdered metal oxide such as NiO transfers oxygen directly to a fuel in a fuel reactor at high temperatures with no air present. Heat, water, and CO2 are released, and after H2O condensation the CO2 (undiluted by N2) is ready for sequestration, whereas the nickel metal is ready for reoxidation in the air reactor. In principle, these processes can be repeated endlessly with the original nickel metal/nickel oxide participating in a loop that admits fuel and rejects ash, heat, and water. Our project accumulated kinetic rate data at high temperatures and elevated pressures for the metal oxide reduction step and for the metal reoxidation step. These data will be used in computational modeling of CLC on the laboratory scale and presumably later on the plant scale. The oxygen carrier on which the research at Utah is focused is CuO/Cu2O rather than nickel oxide because the copper system lends itself to use with solid fuels in an alternative to CLC called chemical looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU).