Continuous operation characteristics of chemical looping hydrogen production system

Three-reactor chemical looping (TRCL) is a hydrogen and electricity production technology with inherent separation of carbon dioxide by use of the iron-based oxygen carrier particles. In this study, an integrated continuous operation test unit (300 Wth) using 20 wt% Fe2O3/ZrO2as an oxygen carrier was successfully operated over 13 h. The average CH4 conversion was 94.15% in a fuel reactor in a moving bed mode. Nearly pure hydrogen (99.95%) was obtained from a steam reactor (SR). The steam conversion to H2 was around 63% of the thermodynamic limit in the SR. The hydrogen containing CO was observed from the SR when the carbon deposited particles were introduced into the SR. During the continuous operation, the oxygen carrier particles maintained its physical and chemical properties with high durability in the TRCL system.