Co-pyrolysis of biomass and coal in a free fall reactor.pdfVIP

Fuel 86 (2007) 353–359 www.fuelfi Co-pyrolysis of biomass and coal in a free fall reactor Li Zhang, Shaoping Xu *, Wei Zhao, Shuqin Liu State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Department of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, 158 Zhongshan Road, PO Box 33, Dalian 116012, China Received 23 March 2006; received in revised form 5 July 2006; accepted 5 July 2006 Available online 14 August 2006 Abstract An experimental study on co-pyrolysis of biomass and coal was performed in a free fall reactor under atmospheric pressure with nitro- gen as balance gas. The coal sample selected was Dayan lignite, while the biomass used was legume straw. The operation temperature was over a range of 500–700 C, and the blending ratio of biomass in mixtures was varied between 0 and 100 wt.%. The results indicated that there exist synergetic effects in the co-pyrolysis of biomass and coal. Under the higher blending ratio conditions, the char yields are lower than the theoretical values calculated on pyrolysis of each individual fuel, and consequently the liquid yields are higher. Moreover, the experimental results showed that the compositions of the gaseous products from blended samples are not all in accordance with those of their parent fuels. The CO2 reactivities of the chars obtained from the co-pyrolysis under the higher blending ratio (around 70 wt.%) conditions are about twice as high as those of coal char alone, even higher than those of biomass alone. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Coal; Biomass; Co-pyrolysis 1. Int