Evaluation of thermokinetics methodology, parameters, and coke characterization of co-pyrolysis of bituminous coal with herbaceous and agricultural biomass

In this paper, conventional thermogravimetric analysis and a new congruent-mass thermogravimetric analysis were used to study the reaction mechanism of the co-pyrolysis process of coal and biomass in the thermogravimetric analyzer, the effects of heating rate and carrier gas flow rate on co-pyrolysis were investigated, and kinetic analysis was conducted for the major pyrolysis stages to explore whether there was a synergistic effect in the co-pyrolysis process. The surface morphology of pyrolytic coke was evaluated by the fractal dimension method. The results show that congruent-mass thermogravimetric analysis can compare the interactions in the co-pyrolysis process more intuitively and reduce the influence of initial mass on the determination of interaction relationship. Synergistic effect appears in co-pyrolysis of coal and biomass. With the increase of heating rate, the thermogravimetric hysteresis appeared and the thermogravimetric curve gradually moved to the high temperature region. With the increase of carrier gas flow rate, the synergistic effect weakens. The kinetics of different reaction stages was analyzed by Coats-Redfern method; the results show that the activation energy required in the main co-pyrolysis stage of the mixture is lower than that in the pyrolysis stage alone. The micromorphology shows that biomass coke has a more developed pore structure than coal, and the box dimension indicates that co-pyrolysis increases the surface irregularity of coke. It is of great significance to judge the interaction mechanism of two or even multiple mixed samples in the process of co-pyrolysis.