Effect of feed impurities on catalytic performance of CuFe2O4/β-SiC for SO3 decomposition in the sulfur–iodine cycle

Abstract

This study assesses the effect of feed impurities on activity and stability of CuFe₂O₄/β-SiC in the SO₃ decomposition reaction of the sulfur–iodine cycle for hydrogen production. To investigate the impact of the impurities, KI and HI are added to sulfuric acid and experiments are conducted with different feed compositions. The activity tests are performed in a fixed bed reactor in the temperature range of 800–900 °C and at 8.1 h⁻¹ WHSV. The stability tests, 20 h time-on-stream, are performed at 850 °C and 8.1 h⁻¹ WHSV. The spent catalysts are characterized by XRD, N₂-BET, TEM, FESEM-EDS and elemental mapping. The catalytic performance is not significantly affected in the presence of the feed impurities. Furthermore, a mathematical model is developed by employing regression analysis on the experimental data to predict SO₃ conversion at different feed compositions and temperatures. The obtained model is highly significant with a coefficient of determination (R²) value of 0.96.