Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Analysis of coal devolatilization in a laboratory-scale entrained-flow reactor. Final report

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5951864· OSTI ID:5951864

The objective of this program is to develop the techniques to predict the pyrolysis behavior of a coal under conditions typical of entrained flow gasifiers. To achieve this objective, measurements of coal pyrolysis were made in a dilute-phase, lab-scale entrained-flow reactor which has the capacity for in-situ analysis by FT-IR. These data were used to modify and validate a general coal-pyrolysis theory under development at Advanced Fuel Research, Inc. The theory predicts pyrolysis product yields and compositions in detail, and provides a foundation for modeling phenomena such as ignition, swelling, char reactivity, methane yield and the formation and gasification of tar and soot. Six coals (Pittsburgh No. 8, two Illinois No. 6 and a Utah bituminous, a Wyoming subbituminous and a Montana lignite) were pyrolyzed at temperatures from 700/sup 0/C to 1200/sup 0/C for times from 6 to 660 milliseconds. Data were obtained for char and tar composition and gas yields as functions of reaction time and temperature. Material balances near 90% were obtained for the most recent tests. Results from the entrained flow reactor experiments indicate that FT-IR is an excellent way to measure gas evolution (including in-situ measurements of species and temperature) and functional group changes in the reactants. The measurements have yielded additional evidence that coal-pyrolysis kinetics are insensitive to coal rank. Good agreement between theory and experiment have been obtained using a set of distributed kinetic rate coefficients which fit experiments differing substantially in configuration, temperature, and reaction time. 69 figures, 8 tables.

Research Organization:
Advanced Fuel Research, Inc., East Hartford, CT (USA)
OSTI ID:
5951864
Report Number(s):
EPRI-AP-2603; ON: DE83902950
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English