A novel approach to CO2 capture in Fluid Catalytic Cracking-Chemical Looping Combustion

Güleç, Fatih; Meredith, Will; Sun, Cheng-Gong; Snape, Colin E

Abstract

Oil refineries collectively account for about 4–6% of global CO2 emissions and Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) units are responsible for roughly 25% of these. Although post-combustion and oxy-combustion have been suggested to capture CO2 released from the regenerator of FCC units, Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) is also a potential approach. In this study, the applicability of CLC for FCC units has been explored. A refinery FCC catalyst (equilibrium catalyst-ECat) was mixed mechanically with reduced oxygen carriers; Cu, Cu2O, CoO, and Mn3O4. To identify any detrimental effects of the reduced oxygen carriers on cracking, the catalyst formulations were tested for n-hexadecane cracking using ASTM D3907-13, the standard FCC microactivity test (MAT). To investigate the combustion reactivity of coke with physically mixed oxidised oxygen carriers, CuO, Co3O4 and Mn2O3, TGA tests were conducted on a low volatile semi-anthracite Welsh coal, which has a similar elemental composition to actual FCC coke, with various oxygen carrier to coke ratios over the temperature range 750–900 °C.
The results demonstrated that, whereas Cu was detrimental for cracking n-hexadecane with the ECat, Cu2O, CoO, and Mn3O4 have no significant effects on gas, liquid and coke yields, and product selectivity. Complete combustion of the model coke was achieved with CuO, Co3O4 and Mn2O3, once the stoichiometric ratio of oxygen carrier/coke was higher than 1.0 and sufficient time had been provided. These results indicate that the proposed CLC-FCC concept has promise as a new approach to CO2 capture in FCC.

Citation

Güleç, F., Meredith, W., Sun, C.-G., & Snape, C. E. (2019). A novel approach to CO2 capture in Fluid Catalytic Cracking-Chemical Looping Combustion. Fuel, 244, 140-150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2019.01.168

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 30, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Feb 8, 2019
• Publication Date: May 15, 2019
• Deposit Date: Feb 18, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 18, 2019
• Journal: Fuel
• Print ISSN: 0016-2361
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-7153
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 244
• Pages: 140-150
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2019.01.168
• Keywords: Fuel Technology; Organic Chemistry; Energy Engineering and Power Technology; General Chemical Engineering
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1562177
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236119301693
• Contract Date: Feb 18, 2019