Experimental and kinetic study of pyridine oxidation under the fuel-lean condition in a jet-stirred reactor

Abstract

Pyridine is an important model compound of fuel-nitrogen during the coal combustion process. The lean oxidation of pyridine was studied over 800–1100 K at atmospheric pressure with the equivalence ratio of 0.4 in a jet-stirred reactor. Pyridine and its oxidation products were measured by tunable synchrotron vacuum ultraviolet photoionization molecular-beam mass spectrometry and gas chromatography analyzer. Three-stage consumption phenomenon of pyridine and O2 was observed including a fast consumption stage at 910–920 K, a moderate consumption stage at 920–1000 K, and a slow consumption stage at 1000–1100 K. HCN, N2, N2O, and HNCO are the major nitrogenous oxidation products of pyridine. CO, CO2, HCN, and HNCO are the dominant carbonaceous products. HNCO is uniquely detected in the lean oxidation of pyridine compared with rich oxidation. A new pyridine LTO 2.0 model comprising 210 species and 1349 reactions was proposed, providing a good prediction of pyridine and its major oxidation products against experimental data. N2O emission is larger than NO at 1100 K. HCN is the dominant nitrogenous intermediate under both fuel-lean and fuel-rich conditions. Results of this work provide a detailed analysis of the nitrogen evolution mechanism of pyridine oxidation under the fuel-lean condition, which is close to the real industrial low-temperature coal combustion processes including the MILD combustion, fluidized bed combustion, etc.