(280h) Application of Doped Iron Oxides for the Thermochemical Conversion of CO2 into Fuels

To produce liquid transportation fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, syngas is used as the feed for the Fischer Tropsch process. The syngas fed to the Fischer Tropsch process is produced from fossil fuels. Excessive utilization of fossil fuels not only reduces their resources but also helps to increase environmental issues. One of the alternative options to produce syngas is the split the H₂O and CO₂ by using doped iron oxide-based redox reactions. It is a two-step process in which the first step deals with the thermal reduction of doped iron oxides, and the second step helps to re-oxidize the doped iron oxides via H₂O and/or CO₂ splitting, further resulting in producing fuel such as H₂ or syngas. This study uses a combustion synthesis approach to manufacture doped iron oxides. The synthesized doped iron oxides are characterized and further tested in a high-temperature thermogravimetric analyzer. The influence of the thermal reduction and re-oxidation temperatures on the fuel production capacity and long-term redox reactivity is investigated. A computational thermodynamic analysis is also conducted to estimate the solar-to-fuel energy conversion efficiency. Results will be presented in detail.