(206d) Transition Metal Doped Ceria for Solar Thermochemical Fuel Production

One of the most attractive option for solar fuel production is solar thermochemical splitting of H₂O and CO₂ using metal oxide based redox pairs. Such conversion process consists of reduction and oxidation of metal oxide that eliminate the separation issue of H₂ and O₂ in case of water splitting reaction. Thermochemical splitting of H₂O and CO₂ generates a mixture of CO and H₂ i.e. syngas which can be used for the production of storable and transportable liquid hydrocarbon fuels via Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process. This offers a renewable, environment friendly and long-term solution for future energy demand with CO₂ mitigation. This study investigate the effect of transition metal cation as a dopant into ceria on the solar thermochemical splitting of CO₂ in multiple redox cycles. Multiple transition metal based dopants are incorporated in the ceria fluorite crustal structure (with various doping levels) by using co-precipitation of hydroxides method. As-prepared doped ceria materials are characterized using various analytical techniques. The derived doped ceria materials are examined towards a two-step CO₂ splitting cycle using thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA). Effects of material loading, CO₂ concentration, cycling time, and reaction temperatures on thermal reduction and CO₂ splitting ability of doped ceria is investigated in detail and obtained results will be presented.