Enhancement of sintering resistance of CaO-based sorbents using industrial waste resources for Calooping in the cement industry

• Autor(a) principal: Teixeira, P.
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Mohamed, Ismail, Fernandes, Auguste, Silva, João, Ribeiro, M Filipa, Pinheiro, Carla
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/11199
• topic: CO2 capture; Ca-looping; CaO-based mixed sorbents; Industrial wastes; Coal fly ash; Spent FCC catalyst; Cement industry

Keeping a high stability and CO2 capture capacity of CaO-based sorbents during the Ca-looping process is still a challenge. The main goal and the innovative idea addressed in this study consists of investigating if solid industrial waste resources such as a coal fly ash (CFA) and a spent Fluid Catalytic Cracking (SFCC) catalyst, can be used as particle spacers to improve the sintering resistance of two CaO-based sorbents. These two inert industrial waste materials are used in the present work for increasing the CaO particles separation and consequently, reducing their coalescence and hindering severe sintering at the high Ca-looping temperatures. There are currently no studies in the literature on the use of industrial SFCC wastes in blends with CaO based sorbents acting as CaO particles spacer with the objective of reducing the Ca-looping sorbents deactivation along the cycles of carbonation-calcination. Despite the mineralogical and textural differences between the CFA and SFCC catalyst industrial wastes, the tests carried out in a fixed bed laboratory reactor showed that the addition of a small fraction of waste to the CaO sorbent (ca. 10%) seems to be an interesting option to improve the CO2 capture technology efficiency. During the Ca-looping, the volume and stability of sorbent mesopores is essential to achieve higher and stable carbonation conversion values, and since the CFA and SFCC increase the SBET, they contribute to enhance the sintering resistance. The innovative results presented in this study show that the industrial CFA and SFCC wastes have potential to be an economically attractive option thus contributing to reduce the cost of the Ca-looping cycle CO2 capture process, as well as to minimize the adverse environmental impacts of the high volume of industrial wastes generated.