A novel reactor configuration for packed bed chemical-looping combustion of syngas

•The feasibility of packed bed CLC with syngas as the fuel is assessed.•The influence of temperature profiles from previous cycles on the process is evaluated.•A new two-stage CLC process is introduced and demonstrated. This study reports on the application of chemical looping combustion (CLC) in pressurized packed bed reactors using syngas as a fuel. High pressure operation of CLC in packed bed has a different set of challenges in terms of material properties, cycle and reactor design compared to fluidized bed operation. However, high pressure operation allows the use of inherently more efficient power cycles than low pressure fluidized bed solutions. This paper quantifies the challenges in high pressure operation and introduces a novel reactor concept with which those challenges can be addressed. Continuous cyclic operation of a packed bed CLC system is simulated in a 1D numerical reactor model. Importantly, it is demonstrated that the temperature profiles that can occur in a packed bed reactor as a result of the different process steps do not accumulate, and have a negligible effect on the overall performance of the system. Moreover, it has been shown that an even higher energy efficiency can be achieved by feeding the syngas from the opposite direction during the reduction step (i.e. countercurrent operation). Unfortunately, in this configuration mode, more severe temperature fluctuations occur in the reactor exhaust, which is disadvantageous for the operation of a downstream gas turbine. Finally, a novel reactor configuration is introduced in which the desired temperature rise for obtained hot pressured air suitable for a gas turbine is obtained by carrying out the process with two packed bed reactor in series (two-stage CLC). This is shown to be a good alternative to the single bed configuration, and has the added advantage of decreasing the demands on both the oxygen carrier and the reactor materials and design specification.