Chalmers University of Technology is located in Göteborg, and it was founded in 1829. It was transformed into an independent foundation in 1994 and is one of the leading technical universities in northern Europe.
The research group at the division of Energy Technology at Chalmers is world leading in chemical-looping combustion. The group has worked with development of oxygen-carrier material for such processes since 1998 and was the first to successfully demonstrate the process in sustained operation, which was achieved 2003 in a 10 kW prototype unit for gaseous fuel. Chalmers was also first to demonstrate chemical-looping combustion of solid fuels in another 10 kW prototype in 2006. Already in these early tests it was noted that reduced circulation led to high concentrations of CO and H2.
Chalmers currently has four chemical-looping reactor units for gaseous/solid/liquid (G/S/L) fuels: 300 W (G/L), 10 kW (G/L), 10 kW (S) and 100 kW (S), that have totally been in operation with fuel for >4000 h, using >60 different oxygen carrier materials. This involves the first successful demonstration of chemical-looping combustion with oxygen carriers based on nickel, iron and manganese oxides, as well as natural minerals and combined oxides (e.g. CaMnO3-δ), using natural gas, syngas, bituminous coal, pet coke, wood char, kerosene, fuel oil and heavy oil residues as fuels. Further, Chalmers has investigated more than 500 different oxygen carrier materials in laboratory. Chalmers has >300 publications on CLC, of which >170 are reviewed and 18 are PhD theses.
Other major experimental and modelling work at the division has been related to combustion and gasification, with strong focus on fluidized bed technology. Current main activities are related to oxygen-carrier aided combustion of biomass and indirect gasification of biomass. For these activities the division has access to a unique 12 MW circulating fluidized bed (CFB) research boiler and gasifier located at Chalmers. It should also be pointed out that the city of Göteborg is home of the GoBiGas project, which is one of the world’s largest industrial plants for production of biogas from biomass by gasification. This facility utilizes technology developed by Chalmers.
The research group at Chalmers has been initiator of chemical-looping related research in the EU-projects GRACE, CLC GAS POWER, CACHET, INNOCUOUS, NOCO2, the ECSC/RFCS-projects CCCC and ACCLAIM, and together with Alstom, the RFCS-project ECLAIR and solid fuel CLC work within EU-project ENCAP.