Chemical Looping Combustion in a Rotating Bed Reactor - Finding Optimal Process Conditions for Prototype Reactor

A lab-scale rotating bed reactor for chemical looping combustion has been designed, constructed, and tested using a CuO/Al(2)O(3) oxygen carrier and methane as fuel. Process parameters such as bed rotating frequency, gas flows, and reactor temperature have been varied to find optimal performance of the prototype reactor. Around 90% CH(4) conversion and >90% CO(2) capture efficiency based on converted methane have been obtained. Stable operation has been accomplished over several hours, and also stable operation can be regained after intentionally running into unstable conditions. Relatively high gas velocities are used to avoid fully reduced oxygen carrier in part of the bed. Potential CO(2) purity obtained is in the range 30 to 65% mostly due to air slippage from the air sector which seems to be the major drawback of the prototype reactor design. Considering the prototype nature of the first version of the rotating reactor setup, it is believed that significant improvements can be made to further avoid gas mixing in future modified and up-scaled reactor versions.