Composition, Structure and Reduction Reactivity of Composite Materials of the α-Fe2O3–СaFe2O4 System by Hydrogen

In this paper, α-Fe2O3–CaFe2O4 composite materials obtained by high-temperature solid-phase synthesis from Ca and Fe (III) oxides with varying molar ratio CaO/Fe2O3 in the range 0.15-1.00 were investigated. The materials are characterized by Х-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis (SEM-EDS) and simultaneous thermal analysis (STA) in the hydrogen temperature-programmed reduction mode (H2-TPR). SEM-EDS studies of the specimens were revealed a formation of the “core-shell” type complex microstructure of material with the hematite phase as the “core”. H2-TPR of the specimens allowed to establish a decrease of the contribution of low-temperature forms of lattice oxygen in areas of 350-510 °С (up to 2.6 times) and 510-650 °С (up to 1.7 times), and the growth of the contribution of the high-temperature oxygen form in the range of 650-900 °С (up to 2 times) with an increase in the content of the phase CaFe2O4 from 33.4 to 97.5 wt. %. Relying on the assessment of lattice oxygen mobility, it was suggested, that the samples with content of CaFe2O4 phase more than 55.4 wt. % are promising for use as oxygen carriers in chemical looping processes of syngas production.