TGA-FTIR investigation of the chemical looping combustion by coal with a CuO-Fe2O3 combined oxygen carrier

The reaction of a Chinese lean coal LPS with Fe₂O₃-CuO combined OC (i.e.CuFe₂O₄) was investigated by means of thermogravimetric (TGA) coupled with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). It was found that the reaction of LPS with CuFe₂O₄ displayed two-staged reaction characteristics, and obvious synergistic effect from both CuO and Fe₂O₃ was manifest; although the amount of lattice oxygen transferred from CuFe₂O₄ was the same as that of the mixture of CuO with Fe₂O₃ at the fixed mass ratio, the shorter duration was needed and thus more advantageous for the application of chemical looping combustion (CLC) of LPS; Finally, the overall activation energy for the reaction of LPS with CuFe₂O₄ was estimated as 83.16 kJ/mol with Coats-Redfern method.