Fast pyrolysis of coals under N2 and CO2 atmospheresExperiments and modeling

Oxyfuel combustion represents one way for cleaner energy production using coal as combustible. The comparison between the oxycombustion and the conventional air combustion process starts with the investigation of the pyrolysis step. The aim of this contribution is to evaluate the impact of N2 (for conventional air combustion) and CO2 (for oxy-fuel combustion) atmospheres during pyrolysis of three different coals. The experiments are conducted in a drop tube furnace over a wide temperature range 800–1400 °C and for residence time ranging between 0.2 and 1.2 s. Coal devolatilized in N2 and CO2 atmospheres at low temperatures (< 1200 °C) provides similar results regarding mass loss, char combustion in thermogravimetric analysis and CO concentration. At higher temperatures (> 1200 °C) and longer residence times (> 0.5 s), the char-CO2 reaction is clearly observed, whose intensity depends on the nature of the coal. Furthermore, the volatile yields are simulated using Kobayashi’s scheme and kinetic parameters are predicted for each coal. The char gasification under CO2 is also accounted for by the model.