Near 100% CO Selectivity in Nanoscaled Iron-Based Oxygen Carriers for Chemical Looping Methane Partial Oxidation

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that nanoscale iron oxide particles embedded in mesoporous silica can achieve near 100% CO selectivity in methane partial oxidation at lower temperatures, significantly reducing CO2 co-production.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel nanostructured iron oxide oxygen carrier that dramatically suppresses CO2 formation, enabling highly selective methane oxidation at lower temperatures.

Findings

Achieved near 100% CO selectivity at 750-935°C.

Embedded nanoparticles stabilize high-temperature redox cycles.

DFT calculations explain size-dependent selectivity and surface chemistry.

Abstract

Chemical looping methane partial oxidation provides an energy and cost effective route for methane utilization. However, there is considerable CO2 co-production in state-of-the-art chemical looping systems, rendering a decreased productivity in value-added fuels or chemicals. In this work, we show that the co-production of CO2 can be dramatically suppressed in methane partial oxidation reactions using iron oxide nanoparticles, with a size of 2~8 nm, as the oxygen carrier. To stabilize these nanoparticles at high temperatures, they are embedded in an ordered, gas-permeable mesoporous silica matrix. We experimentally obtained near 100% CO selectivity in a cyclic redox system at 750{\deg}C to 935{\deg}C, which is a significantly lower temperature range than in conventional oxygen carrier systems. Density functional theory calculations elucidate the origins for such selectivity and reveal that CH4 adsorption energies decrease with increasing nanoparticle size. These calculations also show that low-coordinated lattice oxygen atoms on the surface of nanoparticles significantly promote Fe-O bond cleavage and CO formation. We envision that embedded nanostructured oxygen carriers have the potential to serve as a general materials platform for achieving 100% selectivity in redox reactions at high temperatures.