Volume 41: Energy Transitions toward Carbon Neutrality: Part IV

Scalable Fe2O3-NiO Oxygen Carrier for Dual-stage Hydrogen Production from Mid-temperature Methane Chemical Looping Steam Reforming Sanli Tang, Zhongrui Gai, Yang Li, Yunlian Liu, Mingkai Liu, Ying Pan

Abstract

Methane chemical looping has emerged as a promising avenue to produce blue or green hydrogen. Among the various oxygen carriers investigated for this process, Fe2O3 and NiO have garnered significant attention due to their affordability and non-toxic nature. However, the utilization of such oxygen carriers has exhibited satisfactory yields only at temperatures exceeding 800 °C. This limitation poses challenges for industrial reactor design and application. In this study, we present a novel approach involving the design of nanoscale Fe/Ni bimetallic oxygen carriers. This strategic design can reach a deeper reduction state to FeO while reducing the temperature to 500-600 °C. Moreover, we have achieved scalable production of the proposed oxygen carrier, with a negligible penalty in CH4 conversion (<3%) compared to laboratory-scale samples. A typical 10-kg scale nano oxygen carrier maintained a H2 purity of >78% in the outlet and stable performance over 300 cycles. Such noteworthy findings contribute to the advancement of chemical looping plants for green hydrogen production and refueling.

Keywords Mid-temperature dual-stage chemical looping reforming, Blue H2 production, Bimetallic oxygen carrier