Kinetic analyses and synergistic effects of CO2 co-gasification of low sulphur petroleum coke and biomass wastes

•The reactivity and kinetics of PC gasification were significantly affected by adding biomass.•The SD and R2 were found to be the most reactive wastes and best reaction model, respectively.•Significant synergistic effect was observed.•The addition of biomass wastes significantly improved the reactivity of PC gasification. This study presents thermogravimetric analyses (TGA) of CO2 co-gasification of petroleum coke with low sulphur (PC) and various types of biomass wastes including agricultural (rice husk (RH), rice stalk (RS) and cotton straw (CS)) and by-product wastes (saw dust (SD) and sugar cane bagasse (SCB)). Their reactivities, synergistic effect and kinetics were studied and compared in detail. The homogeneous model (HM) and shrinking core models (SCM) were applied to estimate the kinetic parameters. The results indicated that obvious synergistic effect was observed during the co-gasification of the blends. The PC gasification reactivity was significantly improved by the addition of biomass wastes. The model of R2 was found to be most suitable for the co-gasification. The activation energy of PC was decrease from 293.72 kJ/mol to117.04 kJ/mol by the addition of SD. The co-gasification of PC and biomass waste is a promising way for the efficient utilization of PC and biomass wastes.