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Studies on the preparation of active oxygen-deficient copper ferrite and its application for hydrogen production through thermal chemical water splitting

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Abstract

Hydrogen generation through thermal chemical water splitting technology has recently received increasingly international interest in the nuclear hydrogen production field. Besides the main known sulfur-iodine (S-I) cycle developed by the General Atomics Company and the UT3 cycle (iron, calcium, and bromine) developed at the University of Tokyo, the thermal cycle based on metal oxide two-step water splitting methods is also receiving research and development attention worldwide. In this work, copper ferrite was prepared by the co-precipitation method and oxygen-deficient copper ferrite was synthesized through first and second calcination steps for the application of hydrogen production by a two-step water splitting process. The crystal structure, properties, chemical composition and δ were investigated in detail by utilizing X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetry (TG) and differential thermal analysis (DTA), atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS), ultraviolet spectrophotometry (UV), gas chromatography (GC), and so on. The experimental two-step thermal chemical cycle reactor for hydrogen generation was designed and developed in this lab. The hydrogen generation process of water splitting through CuFe2O4−δ and the cycle performance of copper ferrite regeneration were firstly studied and discussed.

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Correspondence to Jing Chen.

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Supported by the specialized research fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education, Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 20070003033)

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Yu, B., Zhang, P., Zhang, L. et al. Studies on the preparation of active oxygen-deficient copper ferrite and its application for hydrogen production through thermal chemical water splitting. Sci. China Ser. B-Chem. 51, 878–886 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-008-0059-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-008-0059-7

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