CuO-based materials for thermochemical CO2 capture cycles: The influence of the formation of a CuO percolation network on oxygen release and oxidation kinetics

Thermochemical CO2 capture cycles such as chemical looping combustion (CLC) are an economically promising CO2 capture technology that rely on the combustion of a hydrocarbon fuel with lattice oxygen that is derived from a solid oxygen carrier. The oxygen carrier is typically regenerated with air. To increase the agglomeration resistance and redox stability of the oxygen carriers, the active phase is often stabilized with high Tammann temperature ceramics, resulting in the formation of so-called cermet structures. It has been hypothesized that the redox performance of the cermets depends critically on the conduction pathways for solid-state ionic diffusion and the activation energy for charge transport. Here, we investigate the influence of the formation of a percolation network on the electrical conductivity and the rate of oxidation for CeO2-stabilized Cu. We found that for oxygen carriers that contained 60 wt. % CuO, the charge transport occurred predominately via Cu/CuO conduction pathways. Below the percolation threshold of CuO, the conduction of charge carriers took place via CeO2 grains, which formed a continuous network. The measurements of charge transport and redox characteristics confirmed that the activation energy for charge transport through the cermet increased with decreasing Cu content. This indicates that the solid-state diffusion of charge carriers plays an important role during re-oxidation.