Coal/biomass co-combustion investigation by thermogravimetric analysis

Faculty of Science Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (Rayong Campus), Rayong, Thailand, 21120

^* Corresponding author: akarasingh.b@sciee.kmutnb.ac.th

Abstract

In this study, the thermal characteristics and kinetic parameters of coal/biomass blended fuels (75:25, 50:50 and 25:75 wt.%/wt.%) were investigated by using the thermogravimetric technique under atmospheric air. Three types of agricultural waste biomass including cassava root, palm kernel shell and rice husk were used as raw materials. The experiments were performed under different temperatures, ranging from 313-973 K with the heating rate of 5, 10, 20 and 40 K/min. The results show that the thermal decomposition of biomass exhibit three-four stages including moisture and some light volatile removal stage (up to 463 K), volatile oxidation stage (423-663 K), char combustion stage (663-823 K) and inorganic oxidation stage (803-953 K). Lignite on the other hand exhibits only two main peaks during the entire combustion process, corresponding to the moisture removal (up to 433 K) and the decomposition/oxidation (433-833 K), respectively. In addition, it was also found that the blending of biomass residues improved the ignition temperature of the blended fuels, indicating an improvement of devolatilization of coal. Kinetic studies show that the average apparent activation energies of the co-combustion of coal/cassava root, coal/palm kernel shell and coal/rice husk calculated from the Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose method are reported at ca. 105.25, 179.66 and 121.84 kJ/mol, respectively.