Gaseous state oxygen carrier for coal chemical looping process

•MoO3 was proposed as a new oxygen carrier for coal chemical looping process.•This volatile oxygen carrier offers unique advantages over traditional carriers.•The reaction of gas-phase MoO3 with carbon was first reported.•Different operation conditions of fuel reactor were simulated.

Traditional chemical looping technologies utilize solid oxygen carriers and has some disadvantages, especially when solid fuels like coal are used. In this work, a novel chemical looping process using gaseous metal oxide as oxygen carrier was proposed. The reaction of activated charcoal with gas-phase MoO3 was studied for the first time. The experiments were conducted isothermally at different temperatures in a fixed-bed reactor. The apparent activation energy of the reaction was calculated and suitable kinetic models were determined. The results and analysis showed that the proposed concept has potential in both coal chemical looping combustion and gasification process.

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