How the presence of O2 and NOx influences the alternate cycles of CO2 adsorption and hydrogenation to CH4 on Ru-Na-Ca/Al2O3 dual function material

The Integrated Carbon Capture and Utilization-Methanation (ICCU-Methanation) requires a Dual Function Material (DFM), which firsts captures CO2 and then converts it into CH4, working in alternating adsorption and hydrogenation periods. The ICCU technology can be applied directly to a flue gas leaving a combustion chamber, which usually contains oxidizing species such as oxygen and nitrogen oxides. In this work, the stability of a DFM with composition 4%Ru-8%Na2CO3-8%CaO/Al2O3 is studied for the CO2 adsorption and hydrogenation in alternate cycles including O2 (0–10%) and NOx (0–2000 ppm) during the adsorption period. The variation of CO2 concentration in the usual range of flue gases (5–15%) has little influence on the global performance of the ICCU technology. However, the incorporation of O2 during the adsorption period decreases the production of CH4, and this decrease is even accentuated with increasing the oxygen concentration. This fact is mainly attributed to the oxidation of metal sites that limits the reduction behavior. On the other hand, the addition of NOx competes with CO2 for the basic adsorption sites, which slightly limits the amount of CO2 stored, and consequently the production of CH4. Helpfully, the proposed DFM presents high stability during the 207 cycles here performed, which corresponds to 34 h of time-on-stream, including different CO2 concentrations, and in the presence or absence of O2 and/or NOx. It is concluded that the proposed DFM formulation is competent for long-term operation in the presence of O2 and NOx during the CO2 adsorption period.