Synthesis and performance assessment of nanofibrous oxygen carriers in chemical looping dry reforming of methane

Abstract

Chemical looping technology is an interesting method of utilizing carbonaceous fu els while alleviating some of the environmental impacts of its usage. It has been previously implemented in combustion processes and further research is being con ducted to investigate its potential in other processes such as methane reformation. For chemical looping technology to be viable in this application there is a need for efficient oxygen carrying materials. This thesis aimed to synthesize and test an oxygen carrying material with a nanofibrous structure which could be used in dry methane reformation applications. Using electrospinning, a substrate of was synthe sized on which metals could be impregnated resulting in a nanofibrous material with metal oxides bound to an alumina fibrous substrate. The metals investigated in this project was iron, cerium, manganese, strontium and nickel. These materials were chosen due to their relative abundance and iron was the main metal constituent of the materials, while the other metals was used as dopants. The resulting materials were used in methane reformation successfully, with iron-nickel and iron-Strontium being the most effective of the materials investigated.