Thermal decomposition of (NH4)2SO4 in presence of Mn3O4

✍ Scribed by Liqun Mao; Ali T-Raissi; Cunping Huang; Nazim Z. Muradov

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 458 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0360-3199
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2010.11.011

✦ Synopsis

The main objective of this work is to develop a hybrid water-splitting cycle that employs the photon component of sunlight for production of H 2 and its thermal (i.e. IR) component for generating oxygen. In this paper, (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 thermal decomposition in the presence of Mn 3 O 4 , as an oxygen evolving step, was systematically investigated using thermogravimetric/differential thermal analyses (TG/DTA), temperature programmed desorption (TPD) coupled with a mass spectrometer (MS), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) techniques. Furthermore, thermolysis of ammonium sulfate, (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 , in the presence of Mn 3 O 4 was also investigated by conducting flow reactor experiments. The experimental results obtained indicate that at 200e450 C, (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 decomposes forming NH 3 and H 2 O and sulfur trioxide that in the presence of manganese oxide react to form manganese sulfate, MnSO 4 . At still higher temperatures (800∼900 C), MnSO 4 further decomposed forming SO 2 and O 2 .