Comparison of CuO and NiO as oxygen carrier in chemical looping combustion of a Victorian brown coal

Abstract Chemical looping combustion (CLC) is a novel process where an oxygen carrier, preferably oxides of metal, is used to transfer oxygen from the combustion air to the fuel. The outlet gas from the process reactor consists of CO2 and H2O, and concentrated stream of CO2 is obtained for sequestration when water vapour is condensed. Chemical looping has been widely studied for combustion of natural gas; however its application to solid fuels, such as coal, is being studied relatively recently; no work has been done using Victorian brown coal which represents a very large resource, over 500 years at current consumption rate. In this study we carried out an experimental investigation pertaining to CLC of a Victorian brown coal from Loy Yang mine using NiO and CuO as oxygen carrier. The experiments were conducted using a thermogravimetric analyser (TGA) under CO2 gasification environment with NiO and CuO. The reduction and re-oxidation of NiO in five repeated cycle operations were performed at 950 °C. However, the same cyclic operation for CuO was performed at 800 °C, as it was observed that at 950 °C CuO could not be re-oxidized to its original state due to sintering, which significantly altered the morphology. The extent of coal combustion and re-oxidation of metal oxides resulted in a 4.4–7.5% weight loss of NiO per cycle. No such weight loss was observed in case of CuO at 800 °C. The high reactivity of CuO was observed as compared to NiO during cyclic operation. The percentage of combustion at the end of the 5th cycle with CuO was 96% as compared to 67% with NiO. Fresh oxide particles and solid residues are characterized using SEM to understand surface morphological changes due to combustion. The energy dispersive X-rays (EDX) helped to get surface elemental information, albeit qualitative, of fresh and used metal oxide particles. The current study, for the first time, has generated practical information on the temperature range, approximate time, and percent combustion that can be achieved while using NiO and CuO as oxygen carriers during CLC with Loy Yang brown coal. Based on these results the ongoing work includes long duration experiments with Loy Yang and other Victorian brown coals.