Thermogravimetric analysis on the characteristics of oxy-fuel co-combustion of sub-bituminous coal and semi-coke

The co-combustion of the low-rank coal with coal derived semi-coke is of great significance to solve the urgent problem of excessively produced semi-coke in China. In this research, the oxy-fuel co-combustion characteristics of Zhundong sub-bituminous coal with bituminous coal derived semi-coke are systematically investigated using thermogravimetric analysis. Compared with air combustion, oxy-fuel atmosphere increased the ignition and burnout temperature by 10 and 40 °C, respectively. Increasing the oxygen concentration to 30% strongly compensated for the slight reduction of the combustion parameters under oxy-fuel condition and much better co-combustion performance was obtained. Three iso-conversional methods, namely, Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO), Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS) and Starink, were applied to estimate the activation energy, which can be divided into two stages during the co-combustion process. The average activation energy of sub-bituminous coal, the blend and semi-coke were 49.31, 50.82 and 59.00 kg/mol, respectively. Further, the pre-exponential factor and thermodynamic parameters of the enthalpy change, Gibbs free energy change and entropy change were calculated. Interaction indices were innovatively used for both kinetic-thermodynamic parameters and DTG values. An obvious interaction can be observed during the co-combustion process. The kinetic and thermodynamic results demonstrated that the 30% semi-coke ratio was beneficial to co-combustion. Meanwhile, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and ash fusion analyses proved that the slagging tendency of sub-bituminous coal ash reduced by blending of semi-coke.