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La presente invención propone el empleo de escoria de acería pretratada para el almacenamiento termoquímico de energía solar concentrada (CSP) mediante la integración de esta tecnología con el proceso "Calcium Looping" (CaL). La escoria de acería es un material de bajo coste, abundante y no-tóxico. El CaO derivado del tratamiento de la escoria con ácido acético presenta un valor alto y estable de su conversión en CaCO3 a lo largo de sucesivos ciclos de carbonatación/calcinación llevados a cabo en condiciones de máxima eficiencia para la integración CSP-CaL. La invención tiene aplicación en el sector energético, y en concreto, en el área de energías renovables. También es relevante en el sector metalúrgico pues revaloriza la escoria de acería para su empleo en el almacenamiento de energía., Universidad de Sevilla, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (España), B1 Patente sin examen previo

The Ca-looping (CaL) process, based on the multicyclic carbonation/ calcination of limestone derived CaO, has emerged recently as a potentially economically advantageous technology to achieve sustainable postcombustion and precombustion CO2 capture efficiencies. Yet, a drawback that hinders the efficiency of the CaL process is the drastic drop of limestone capture capacity as the number of carbonation/calcination cycles is increased. Precalcination of limestone at high temperatures for a prolonged period of time has been proposed as a potential technique to reactivate the sorbent, which is however precluded by regeneration temperatures above 850 C and low CO2 concentrations in the carbonator to be found in the practical situation. Under these conditions, heat pretreatment leads to a stable yet very small CaO conversion. On the other hand, the introduction of a recarbonation stage between the ordinary carbonation and calcination stages has been shown to decelerate the rate of sorbent activity decay even though this favorable effect is not noticeable up to a number of above 10-15 cycles. The present manuscript demonstrates that the synergetic action of heat pretreatment and recarbonation yields a high and stable value for the multicyclic conversion of limestone derived CaO. It is foreseen that recarbonation of heat pretreated limestone would lead to a reduction of process costs especially in the case of precombustion applications. Even though sorbent purging will always be needed because of ash accumulation and sulphation in postcombustion CO2 capture applications, the stable and high multicyclic CaO conversion achieved by the combination of these techniques would make it necessary to a lesser extent. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Large scale pilot plants are currently demonstrating the feasibility of the Calcium-looping (CaL) technology built on the multicyclic calcination/carbonation of natural limestone for post-combustion and pre-combustion CO2 capture. Yet, limestone derived CaO exhibits a drop of conversion when subjected to multiple carbonation/calcination cycles, which lessens the efficiency of the technology. In this paper we analyze a novel CaL concept recently proposed to mitigate this drawback based on the introduction of an intermediate stage wherein carbonation is intensified at high temperature and high CO2 partial pressure. It is shown that carbonation in this stage is mainly driven by solid-state diffusion, which is determined by the solid’s crystal structure. Accordingly, a reduction of crystallinity by ball milling, which favors diffusion, serves to promote recarbonation. Conversely, thermal annealing, which enhances crystallinity, hinders recarbonation. An initial fast phase has been identified in the recarbonation stage along which the rate of carbonation is also a function of the crystal structure indicating a relevant role of surface diffusion. This is consistent with a recently proposed mechanism for nucleation of CaCO3 on the CaO surface in islands with a critical size determined by surface diffusion. A further issue analyzed has been the effects of pretreatment and cycling on the mechanical strength of the material, whose fragility hampers the CaL process efficiency. Particle size distribution of samples dispersed in a liquid and subjected to high energy ultrasonic irradiation indicate that milling promotes friability whereas thermal annealing enhances the resistance of the particles to fragmentation even though pretreatment effects become blurred after cycling. Our study demonstrates that recarbonation conditions and crystal-structure controlled diffusion are important parameters to be considered in order to assess the efficiency of CO2 capture in the novel CaL concept

The multicyclic carbonation/calcination (c/c) of CaO solid particles at high temperature is at the basis of the recently emerged Calcium-looping (CaL) technology, which has been shown to be potentially suitable for achieving high and sustainable post-combustion CO2 capture efficiency. Despite the success of pilot plant projects at the MWth scale, a matter of concern for scaling-up the CaL technology to a commercial level (to the GWth scale) is that the CaO carbonation reactivity can be recovered only partially when the sorbent is regenerated by calcination at high temperatures (around 950 °C) as required by the CO2 high concentration in the calciner. In order to reactivate the sorbent, a novel CaL concept has been proposed wherein a recarbonator reactor operated at high temperature/high CO2 concentration leads to further carbonation of the solids before entering into the calciner for regeneration. Multicyclic thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) tests demonstrate the feasibility of recarbonation to reactivate the sorbent regenerated at high calcination temperatures yet at unrealistically low CO2 partial pressure mainly because of technical limitations concerning low heating/cooling rates. We report results from multicyclic c/c and carbonation/recarbonation/calcination (c/r/c) TGA tests at high heating/coling rates and in which the sorbent is regenerated in a dry atmosphere at high CO2 partial pressure. It is shown that at these conditions there is a drastic drop of CaO conversion to a very small residual value in just a few cycles. Moreover, the introduction of a recarbonation stage has actually an adverse effect. Arguably, CaCO3 decomposition in a CO2 rich atmosphere is ruled by CO2 dynamic adsorption/desorption in reactive CaO (1 1 1) surfaces as suggested by theoretical studies, which would preclude the growth of the regenerated CaO crystal structure along these reactive surfaces, and this effect would be intensified by recarbonation. Nevertheless, the presence of H2O in the calciner, which is also adsorbed/desorbed dynamically in CaO reactive planes, would shield CO2 adsorption/desorption thus mitigating the deeply detrimental effect of CO2 on the carbonation reactivity of the regenerated CaO structure. Oxy-combustion, which produces a significant amount of H2O, is currently used in pilot-scale plants to raise the temperature in the calciner. Auxiliary techniques are being explored to help heating the partially carbonated solids since oxyxombustion represents an important penalty to the CaL technology. Our study suggests that steam injection would be necessary in a dry calciner environment to avoid a sharp loss of CaO conversion if the sorbent is regenerated at high CO2 partial pressure.

Pyrophyllite is a raw material of significant interest due to its large number of applications. Most of these applications require a thermal transformation of pyrophyllite; this thermal transformation implies the release of structural OH groups and the formation of new phases. In this paper, we report on the dehydroxylation of pyrophyllite and the reversibility of the process. A value of 224±16 kJ/mol for the dehydroxylation of pyrophyllite was obtained. In addition, it was observed that the partially or totally dehydroxylated pyrophyllite suffered a partial reversible rehydroxylation when cooled to room temperature. This rehydroxylation was substantiated by thermogravimetric measurements, while infrared spectroscopic studies showed that, during the rehydroxylation, the intensity of the OH band at 3675 cm -1 increased as two new bands at 3690 and 3702 cm-1 appeared. This rehydroxylation process was heavily influenced by the particle size of the pyrophyllite. Thus, smaller particles (

The dependence of the preexponential factor on the temperature has been examined and the errors involved in the activation energy calculated from isothermal and non-isothermal methods without considering such dependence have been estimated. It has been shown that the error in the determination of the activation energy calculated ignoring the dependence of Aon Tcan be rather large and it is dependent on x=E/RT, but independent of the experimental method used. It has been also shown that the error introduced by omitting the dependence of the preexponential factor on the temperature is considerably larger than the error due to the Arrhenius integral approach used for carrying out the kinetic analysis of TG data.

Tesis presentada para optar al grado de Doctor por: Cristina García Garrido. Universidad de Sevilla. 2017