Pretreatment of Coal by Acid Leaching As Feedstock Preparation For Co-Gasification With Biomass

Abstract

Co-gasification process of coal and biomass is believed to be one of the promising way to produce hydrogen. The mixing of coal and biomass can solve the problems that usually happened during gasification of pure coal or pure biomass. Furthermore, the presence of synergistic effect between coal and biomass may increase the hydrogen production due to Alkali and Alkaline Earth Metal (AAEM) content in the biomass. However, the synergistic effect may be hindered by the presence of silica in the coal. The present study focuses on the reduction of silica content of coal by acid leaching. Based on the result, it is found that the use of hydrofluoric acid may significantly reduce the silica content shown by the reduction of ash content in the coal. Furthermore, acid leaching process also causes the increase of surface area of the coal which may increase the possibility of AAEM attachment to the surface and thus the gas production may increase as well.