Effect of an Alumina Supported Palladium Catalyst on the Magnesium Sulfate Decomposition Kinetics

The sulfur related thermochemical water-splitting cycles are an important class of chemical processes considered for hydrogen production. Recently, the magnesium sulfate thermal decomposition has been reported as a potential unit operation in one of these cycles. Therefore, some interest has been observed in the use of catalysts to lower the activation energy of such reactions. In this context, the present manuscript reports the thermodynamics and kinetics modeling results associated with this reaction system in the presence of a Pd catalyst supported over γ-Al2O3. The presence of such species is responsible for shifting the decomposition temperature to lower values in at least 100 °C. It was observed that the magnesium content is still oriented towards MgO formation. The obtained results indicate that the Pd/Al2O3 catalyst could be a good alternative in reducing the thermal decomposition temperature as its presence was responsible for diminishing the process activation energy from 368.2 to 258.8 kJ.mol−1.

硫基热化学水分解循环是一类用于氢能生产的重要化学工艺。近期有研究指出，硫酸镁热分解可作为此类循环中的一项潜在单元操作。因此，相关领域研究者对利用催化剂降低该类反应的活化能产生了浓厚兴趣。在此背景下，本文报道了负载于γ-氧化铝（γ-Al₂O₃）的钯（Pd）催化剂作用下，该反应体系的热力学与动力学建模研究结果。实验观测显示，该催化剂可将分解温度至少降低100℃，且镁组分仍倾向于生成氧化镁（MgO）。研究结果表明，Pd/Al₂O₃催化剂在降低热分解温度方面具备良好应用潜力，其可将该过程的活化能从368.2 kJ·mol⁻¹降至258.8 kJ·mol⁻¹。