In this study, copper-based oxygen carriers (OCs) confined in the structure of silica and zirconia aerogels were in situ synthesized by a simple sol-gel method, and the performance of the prepared oxygen carriers was investigated in the chemical looping combustion (CLC) process. The effects of different support types and copper loadings (20-60 wt%) were studied on the physicochemical properties and catalytic behavior of OCs during 15 reduction-oxidation cycles at the temperature of 800 °C. Zirconia-supported oxygen carriers exhibited high reactivity and stability over the cycles. However, the OCs supported on silica showed lower oxygen capacity than the theoretically expected values. This is due to the decomposition of copper oxide (CuO) to Cupric (Cu₂O) during the reaction along with the collapse and fuse of mesoporous silica at high calcination and reaction temperatures which leads to a significant loss of oxygen-carrying capacity. The kinetics of reduction/oxidation steps in the CLC process was studied using a modified grain model considering grain size distribution in the OC particles based on their pore size distribution profile and “pore to sphere” factor. The synthesized oxygen carriers were characterized by Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET), Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX).

本研究采用简单的溶胶-凝胶法原位合成了受限于二氧化硅和氧化锆气凝胶结构中的铜基氧载体（OCs），并研究了所制备的氧载体在化学链燃烧（CLC）中的性能。 ） 过程。研究了不同载体类型和铜负载量（20-60 wt%）对 OC 在 800 °C 温度下 15 个还原-氧化循环期间的物理化学性质和催化行为的影响。氧化锆负载的氧载体在循环中表现出高反应性和稳定性。然而，负载在二氧化硅上的 OC 显示出比理论预期值更低的氧容量。这是由于氧化铜 (CuO) 分解为铜 (Cu ₂O）在反应过程中，伴随着介孔二氧化硅在高煅烧和反应温度下的塌缩和熔合，导致载氧能力显着丧失。使用改进的晶粒模型研究 CLC 过程中还原/氧化步骤的动力学，该模型基于 OC 颗粒的孔径分布曲线和“孔到球”因子考虑了晶粒尺寸分布。合成的氧载体通过 Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET)、电感耦合等离子体发射光谱 (ICP-OES)、X 射线粉末衍射 (XRD)、扫描电子显微镜 (SEM) 和能量色散 X射线光谱（EDX）。