Kinetic analysis on thermo-gravimetric profiles of pulverised coal pyrolysis and gasification under different oxy-fuel environments

Reactivity analysis of pulverised coal in O2/N2/CO2 environments was carried out using thermo‐gravimetric method. At all temperature ranges, coal combustion in O2/CO2 and O2/N2 environments using equivalent oxygen concentrations was almost similar. However, when oxygen concentration increased the coal burning rate also increased thus reducing the burnout time and net combustion gas volume. With increasing heating rate, coal particles burnt at shorter times and at higher temperatures. Mathematical models of Doyle, Coats–Redfern and Freeman–Carroll were applied to determine activation energy and pre‐exponential factor of oxy‐coal combustion at various heating rates. However, kinetic parameters decreased when heating rates increased from 10 to 50 K/min.