Calcium looping process is a promising approach for CO2 capture from the flue
gas of fossil fuel power plants and the cement industry. Even though the
advantages of calcium-based sorbents are low cost and high uptake capacity,
they suffer from low durability during cycles. Modified sorbents were fabricated by adding alumina and zirconia and the mixture of alumina and zirconia
to calcium oxide via the co-precipitation method. The performance of synthesized sorbents in terms of stability and CO2 capture capacity were evaluated
using a fixed bed reactor in various CO2 sorption/desorption cycles. The sorbents were fabricated by a co-precipitation methodology using 10% binders
(alumina and/or silica). X-ray diffraction (XRD), BET/BJH, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were conducted for characterization of synthesized sorbents. CaO-10% ZrO2 showed the best performance among the fabricated
sorbents in terms of stability during 5 cycles and CO2 capacity (14 mmol
CO2/g sorbent). The formation of CaZrO3 with a perovskite structure and
high-temperature resistance could be attributed to well performance of
zirconia-supported sorbent. On the other hand, no sign of aluminum zirconate
formation was approved in XRD analysis for the fabricated sorbent using
mixed binders of zirconia and alumina to enhance its stability during cycles.