(333g) Synthesis of Fe-Based Catalysts Coupled with Carbon Mineral Sequestration

Exploring clean and inexpensive energy and tackling climate change are two of the most pressing issues being faced in the 21st century. Conventional fossil fuel energy especially oil features unstable and periodically soaring price along with significant CO2 emission. Therefore, the missions to deal with global energy and climate constraints are coupled more than ever. One of the methods to store CO2 permanently is carbon mineralization. This method is achieved by chemically fixing gaseous CO2 into solid mineral matrix as carbonates, which is argued to be the safest and most permanent method of carbon storage to date. Unfortunately, most of the carbon mineralization processes are energy intensive and expensive. Thus, there have been significant efforts to reduce the cost of carbon mineral sequestration technology. One of the useful byproducts of carbon mineralization is iron oxide. Silicate minerals such as serpentine often contain 5-10 wt% of iron. Since iron is extracted into aqueous phase during the carbon mineralization process, a variety of Fe-based materials including iron oxide nanoparticles can be synthesized. In this study, iron-based catalysts are synthesized from serpentine and evaluated for two applications: water-gas-shift and biomass-to-hydrogen reactions. Since solutions containing Fe are generated in the presence of chelating agents targeting Mg in serpentine, the effects of chelating agents, alkalizing agents, ionic strength, pH, temperature and post treatment on the synthesis of iron-based catalysts are investigated. Eventually, the utilization of these iron oxide catalysts would further improve the carbon sequestration capacity of the mineral carbonation technology.