Influence of spray drying suspension on the morphology of Fe-based oxygen carriers for chemical looping

Chemical looping reforming (CLR) and chemical looping combustion (CLC) are promising technologies with inherent CO2 capture for transforming fuels into syngas and energy respectively. Circulating oxygen carriers (OC) are used to transfer oxygen from mostly air to the fuel inside the process. Over the past years a variety of materials have been proposed for the role of oxygen carriers, ranging from bulk mineral powders to oxygen carrier particles engineered for shape, size and composition. Iron based materials are very promising and cost effective candidates with minor impact on the environment as compared to the toxic Ni-based OCs. Granulation by the industrial spray-drying technique is suitable for producing oxygen carrier particles with high sphericity and dimensions fit for the fluidized-bed reactors of the CL-process. The lifetime of the oxygen carriers in these reactors however strongly depends on their mechanical properties (as measured by the crushing strength and the attrition resistance) which is related with their morphology and porosity. As this morphology depends on the spray drying suspension, the relation between the additives used in the iron-based suspension and the morphology of the spray-dried particles is investigated in this work [1]. The influence of the concentration of the binder, dispersing agent and solids in the spray-drying suspensions and the intensity of the milling procedure on the morphology and microstructure of the resulting particles is studied by Hg-porosimetry, tapped density, optical microscopy and SEM. A controlled sintering treatment is used during post-processing of these spray-dried particles in order to further improve their mechanical properties before investigating their performance as oxygen carriers in the chemical looping process.