Investigation of asphalt (bitumen)-fuelled chemical looping combustion using durable copper-based oxygen carrier

Abstract

Abstract Bitumen is a liquid fuel recovered from Alberta oil sands by mining or enhanced oil recovery methods, depending on the depth of the deposits. Steam is a typical in-situ enhanced oil recovery agent used to extract bitumen from underground oil reservoirs with minor surface disturbance. The CO 2 emissions from natural gas steam boilers for enhanced oil recovery have been steadily increasing. As a result, ICSET of WKU and Cenovus have been conducting research into whether bitumen is a viable alternative fuel for chemical looping combustion (CLC), which is a CO 2 capture ready technology. Major progress on the process development included preparation of advanced oxygen carriers, and hot-model evaluation of prepared oxygen carriers in a benchscale cyclic CLC reactor. Experiments carried out so far have indicated that copper-based oxygen carrier could generate high purity CO 2 for sequestration with quick kinetics. Major concerns on low melting point of copper-based oxygen carrier could be largely eliminated by adding minimal amounts of stabilization constituents during oxygen carrier preparation. Steam is found to be a good reagent to prevent carbon deposit on copper-based oxygen carrier during the cyclic operation of CLC. Preliminary tests in our bench scale cyclic reactor have indicated the sulfur constituents in bitumen would be converted to SO 2 and it would remain in the fuel reactor gas phase.