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.

Keywords:
Thermal decomposition; kinetics; MgO/MgSO4; sulfur water-splitting cycles; Pd catalyst