LAUSR

Abstract Calcium looping is attracting interest for post-combustion CO2 capture, hydrogen production and energy storage applications. Deactivation of the materials during cycling is a major drawback that has pushed towards the synthesis of CaO-based sorbents with high stability. The present work aims at developing a generalized kinetic model for the carbonation reaction of CaO-based materials composed not only of pristine CaO but in mixture with inert compounds as well. For that purpose, four different materials were used, namely a lime, a calcined dolomite and two synthetic materials containing ZrO2 and MgO as inert phases. The carbonation reaction was studied in a fixed-bed reactor apparatus and in a wide range of temperatures and CO2 partial pressures. A simple modification of the random pore model’s parameters was applied to account also for the inert phase contribution to the materials’ properties. The modified model described well the experimental results for the fast regime of carbonation reaction of all tested materials. Carbonation is a first order reaction with respect to CO2 in the gas phase with an activation energy of 22.1 ± 5.9 kJ/mol. The developed kinetic model can be applied to predict the carbonation rate of CaO-based materials regardless the type and percentage of the contained inert phase.