High‐temperature pyrolysis and CO2 gasification of Victorian brown coal and Rhenish lignite in an entrained flow reactor

Abstract

The low rank coals from Victoria, Australia, and Rhineland, Germany are of interest for use in entrained flow gasification applications. Therefore, a high temperature, electrically heated, entrained flow apparatus has been designed to address the shortage of fundamental data. A Victorian brown coal and a Rhenish lignite were subjected to rapid, entrained flow pyrolysis between 1100 and 1400°C to generate high surface area chars, which were subsequently gasified at the same temperatures under CO2 in N2 between 10 and 80 vol %. The Victorian coal was more reactive than the Rhenish coal, and peak char reactivity was observed at 1200°C. Char conversion and syngas yield increased with increasing temperature and plateaued at high CO2 concentration. Ammonia and tar species were negligible and HCN and H2S were present in parts per million (volume) concentrations in the cooled, filtered syngas. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 62: 2101–2111, 2016