Study of the performances of an oxygen carrier: Experimental investigation of the binder's contribution and characterization of its structural modifications

The aim of this work is to investigate the contribution of the binder (NiAl 2 O 4 ) on the performances of the oxygen carrier NiO/NiAl 2 O 4 . To this purpose, oxidation/reduction cycles have been performed in a fixed bed reactor using CO as a fuel. The results reveal that the binder can react with the fuel to form CO 2 , and that its total reduction capacity increases with temperature. XRD characterizations performed on the binder (on the fresh and after several cycles) show a shift of the diffraction peaks of NiAl 2 O 4 toward the ones of γ-alumina, which can be attributed to a progressive decomposition of NiAl 2 O 4 to alumina and NiO.