Syngas production from chemical looping gasification of rice husk-derived biochar over iron-based oxygen carriers modified by different alkaline earth metals

Oxygen carrier (OC) is a key factor in chemical looping gasification (CLG). Iron oxide is a promising OC due to advantages regarding cost and environment; however, its reactivity with biochar requires improvement to increase syngas production. The novelty of this work is to compare the performance of alkaline earth metals (AEMs: Ca, Ba, and Mg) ferrites and iron oxide OCs for enhancing syngas production from CLG of biochar. The thermogravimetric analyzer and fixed bed system were used to investigate OCs performance. The results demonstrated that the AEMs ferrites have good gasification performance, and BaFe2O4 showed highest syngas yield through solid-solid reaction. Furthermore, CLG was conducted under steam addition, and the results revealed that all AEMs ferrites had improved the performance compared to iron oxide, as syngas yield increased by 39.2%, 15.7%, and 13.8% for BaFe2O4, CaFe2O4, and MgFe2O4, respectively. The highest syngas produced by BaFe2O4 reached 0.07 mol/g of biochar.