Coal devolatilization and char conversion under suspension fired conditions in O2/N2 and O2/CO2 atmospheres

The aim of the present investigation is to examine differences between O2/N2 and O2/CO2 atmospheres during devolatilization and char conversion of a bituminous coal at conditions covering temperatures between 1173 K and 1673 K and inlet oxygen concentrations between 5 and 28 vol.%. The experiments have been carried out in an electrically heated entrained flow reactor that is designed to simulate the conditions in a suspension fired boiler. Coal devolatilized in N2 and CO2 atmospheres provided similar results regarding char morphology, char N2-BET surface area and volatile yield. This strongly indicates that a shift from air to oxy-fuel combustion does not influence the devolatilization process significantly. Char combustion experiments yielded similar char conversion profiles when N2 was replaced with CO2 under conditions where combustion was primarily controlled by chemical kinetics. When char was burned at 1573 K and 1673 K a faster conversion was found in N2 suggesting that the lower molecular diffusion coefficient of O2 in CO2 lowers the char conversion rate when external mass transfer influences combustion. The reaction of char with CO2 was not observed to have an influence on char conversion rates at the applied experimental conditions.