Thermogravimetric and model-free kinetic studies on CO2 gasification of low-quality, high-sulphur Indian coals

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Coal gasification with CO2 has emerged as a cleaner and more efficient way for the production of energy, and it offers the advantages of CO2 mitigation policies through simultaneous CO2 sequestration. In the present investigation, a feasibility study on the gasification of three low-quality, high-sulphur coals from the north-eastern region (NER) of India in a CO2 atmosphere using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA-DTA) has been made in order to have a better understanding of the physical and chemical characteristics in the process of gasification of coal. Model-free kinetics was applied to determine the activation energies (E) and pre-exponential factors (A) of the CO2 gasification process of the coals. Multivariate non-linear regression analyses were performed to find out the formal mechanisms, kinetic model, and the corresponding kinetic triplets. The results revealed that coal gasification with CO2 mainly occurs in the temperature range of 800∘–1400∘C and a maximum of at around 1100∘C. The reaction mechanisms responsible for CO2 gasification of the coals were observed to be of the ‘nth order with autocatalysis (CnB)’ and ‘nth order (Fn) mechanism’. The activation energy of the CO2 gasification was found to be in the range 129.07–146.81 kJ mol−1.