Chemical Looping Partial Oxidation of Methane: Reducing Carbon Deposition through Alloying

In chemical looping, Fe-containing oxygen carriers can catalyze as a side reaction the decomposition of methane, which results in the deposition of carbon on their surface with multiple adverse effects. In this work, we propose a strategy to reduce the extent of carbon deposition by using Co as a second redox-active metal that forms a bimetallic phase with Fe during reduction. We show for a perovskite-based oxygen carrier that the formation of the bimetallic Fe–Co phase improves the dispersion and decreases the size of iron within the material, which may influence its catalytic effect on the decomposition of methane (in addition to potential changes in its electronic structure).