25th ABCM International Congress of Mechanical Engineering

October 20-25, 2019, Uberlândia, MG, Brazil

EXPERIMENTAL DETERMINATION OF KINETIC PARAMETERS OF

COAL COMBUSTION IN A DROP TUBE FURNACE

Juliana Gonçalves Pohlmann

Roberto Coelho Andriotti
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) / Combustion Laboratory
Sarmento Leite St, 425, 90046-902, Porto Alegre/RS/Brazil
robertocoelho1994@hotmail.com

Guilherme Barth Rossi

Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) / Combustion Laboratory
Sarmento Leite St, 425, 90046-902, Porto Alegre/RS/Brazil
g_brossi@hotmail.com

Fernando Marcelo Pereira

Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) / Combustion Laboratory
Sarmento Leite St, 425, 90046-902, Porto Alegre/RS/Brazil
fernando.pereira@ufrgs.br

Paulo Smith Schneider

Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) / Combustion Laboratory
Sarmento Leite St, 425, 90046-902, Porto Alegre/RS/Brazil
pss@ufrgs.br

Guilherme Lacerda Batista de Oliveira

EDP Energia − PECEM
guilherme.oliveira@edpenergiapecem.com.br

Abstract. This work examines the combustion behavior of a Colombian coal in a Drop Tube Furnace and aims to
evaluate kinetic parameters using an experimental approach. The tests on the Drop Tube Furnace will provide
burnouts calculated for different temperatures and residence times inside the reactor, besides the determination of
gaseous species under different combustion stages. The kinetic parameters are going to be calculated using a model
fitting approach, considering devolatilization and char combustion separately. The kinetic parameters evaluated are
expected to be used as auxiliary of simplified models for the combustion and pyrolysis of solid particles. The present
work is in the initial stages of development; hence, no conclusions are available at this point.

Keywords: coal combustion, kinetic parameters, drop tube furnace

1. INTRODUCTION

Pulverized-coal combustion for power generation is a worldwide well-established practice, so that coal remains an
important global fuel supply, accounting for 27% of all energy used worldwide and for 38% of electricity generation
(IEA 2018). It is, nevertheless, important to make the combustion process more efficient and suitable to the increasingly
narrow environmental laws. The volatility of the price of coal on the international market often forces the mills to
switch supplier, and altering the type of coal, consequently the flame stability, emissions of pollutants, and combustion
efficiency are affected. Due to the great variability and heterogeneity of coals from different regions, the optimization of
their use and the conversion processes in which they are used must be specifically studied. In this way, the
understanding of the combustion process of different coals, with regard to their chemical reactions and physical
phenomena involved, before their industrial use and / or to adapt their industrial use becomes quite important.
Numerical modeling is a powerful tool for predicting combustion on an industrial scale, but precise data on fuel
behavior in severe heating conditions is needed. Drop Tube Furnaces (DTFs) are able to predict the behavior of coal
during combustion in industrial processes since in this reactor the particles are exposed to high heating rates (of about
J.G. Pohlmann, R.C. Andriotti, G.B. Rossi. F.M. Pereira, P.S. Schneider and G.L.B. de Oliveira
Experimental Determination Of Kinetic Parameters Of Coal Combustion In A Drop Tube Furnace

104-105 ° C min-1) and short residence times (hundreds of milliseconds to few seconds), comparable to the conditions
found in industrial steam generators.
The chemical reactions of coal in the combustion processes include devolatilization, that is, the evolution of gases
when the particle is subjected to high heating rates without the presence of oxygen, and the heterogeneous burning of
the solid phase, which is the reaction of carbonaceous solid residue (char) with oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapor
(gas phase species). These reactions are responsible for the rate of release of volatile matter, the rate of conversion of
coal, the consequent release of heat, the time and temperature of ignition, among other characteristics. Thus, the size,
geometric form and technology to be used in furnaces, burners and boilers are directly dependent on the kinetic
characteristics of the chemical reactions involved.
Studies for the determination of the reaction rates of coals and their relationship with particle size, coal types and/or
carbonaceous material were intensified from the 1960s on equipment that subjected the particles to high heating rate
conditions (Field, 1969, Smith, 1971) and of low heating rate by the use of thermogravimetry (Smith et al., 1981). More
recent studies for the determination of kinetic parameters are mainly focused on biomasses (Costa et al., 2015, Pereira et
al., 2016) and on the optimization of kinetic parameters using numerical modeling (Ballester and Jiménez 2005).
Costa et al. (2015) evaluated the kinetic parameters using a model-fitting approach for the devolatilization and
combustion stages of biomasses from the burnouts under different temperature and residence time conditions in a drop
tube reactor. Ballester and Jiménez (2005) developed a numerical model based on calculating the particle’s full
combustion history to estimate the kinetic parameters from pyrolysis and combustion experiments in an entrained flow
reactor and adjusted the numerical results with those obtained experimentally. The authors identified that changes in
particle structure and morphology, particularly in terms of diameter and density, can influence the reaction mechanism
and significantly affect reaction rates as combustion progresses. Thus, the characterization of chars obtained under
different conditions is important to contribute to a better determination of kinetic parameters. Reactivity, morphology
and surface area of chars are commonly evaluated by thermal, optical and adsorption techniques.
In this way, the aim of this work is to experimentally evaluate the chemical kinetics of coals in a drop tube furnace,
which will be detailed in the next section. Such results will allow the proposition / adjustment of simplified models for
the combustion and pyrolysis of solid particles.

2. METHODOLOGY

2.1 Materials

A Colombian (C) high volatile bituminous coal is studied in this work. Proximate analysis of this coal is presented
in Table 1.

Table 1. Proximate analysis of original and treated coals.

Colombian Coal
Moisture, wt% 10.90
Ash, wt% d.b.(1) 8.60
Volatile Matter, wt% d.b.(1) 40.90
Fixed carbon, wt% d.b. (1) 50.50
(1)
db = dry basis.

2.2 Combustion tests

The drop tube furnace used in this work (Fig. 1) is an electrically heated furnace, which surrounds a cylindrical
alumina tube with an inner diameter of 48 mm and a length of 1600 mm. The experiments are going to be performed in
five temperatures between 900 and 1100 °C, at atmospheric pressure. The fuel particles are transported from a screw
feeder to a water-cooled injector placed at the top of the ceramic tube. A water/nitrogen-cooled stainless steel probe
collects particles at different heights along the axial length of the reactor, representing different residence times of
particles in the rector. Local mean O2, CO2, CO, NOx and SO2 concentrations along the combustion chamber axis are
evaluated using a Siemens Ultramat 23 analyzer. Coal burnout is evaluated by the ash-tracer method, which is a mass
balance between the ashes entering and leaving the reactor according Eq. (1):

  Ash fuel .  100  Ash 

Burnout(%)  1   
 Ash
char .
  100 (1)
  
  100 Ash fuel .  char . 
 25th ABCM International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
October 20-25, 2019, Uberlândia, MG, Brazil

where Ashfuel is the ash content of the parent material and Ashchar is the ash content of the char collected in the reactor.
The ash tracer assumes that ashes do not suffer any further transformation in the reactor than that undergone during the
ASTM ashing test (ASTM D3174).

Figure 1. Scheme of the drop tube furnace.

2.3 Kinetc modeling

In the model-fitting approach some simplifications are assumed such as that devolatilization occurs only in the upper
part of the DTF and char oxidation occurs only in the lower part of the reactor. According to Costa et al. (2015), the
reaction rate for the devolatilized matter, V, is represented by a single reaction, and usually models adopt a first-order
reaction:

dv/dt = Kv (1-ψ) (2)

where Kv is the chemical reaction rate constant for the devolatilization defined as

Kv=Av EXP(-Ev/RT) (3)

Equation 2 can be written as follows:

Ln (dv/dt / (1-ψ) = -Ev/RT + Ln (Av) (4)

where dv/dt stands for the volatile release with time, ψ is the particle burnout, and Ev and Av represent the activation
energy and the pre-exponential factor for the devolatilization, respectively, R is the universal gas constant and T is the
particle temperature. Similarly, for char combustion:

dm/dt = - A Kc PO2 (5)

where

Kc=Ac EXP(-Ec/RT) (6)

and Equation 5 can be written as follows:

J.G. Pohlmann, R.C. Andriotti, G.B. Rossi. F.M. Pereira, P.S. Schneider and G.L.B. de Oliveira
Experimental Determination Of Kinetic Parameters Of Coal Combustion In A Drop Tube Furnace

Ln (dv/dt / (-A PO2) = -Ec/RT + Ln (Ac) (7)

where dm/dt is the mass loss of the particle with time, A is the particle area, PO2 is the particle pressure of the oxidant,
Ec and Ac represent the activation energy and the pre-exponential factor for the devolatilization, respectively, R is the
universal gas constant and T is the particle temperature.

3. EXPECTED RESULTS

Kinetic parameters for coal combustion are expected to be experimentally evaluated under similar conditions of
heating rate of those found in industrial boilers and could be used as auxiliary of simplified models for the combustion
and pyrolysis of solid particles. The present work is in the initial stages of development; hence, no conclusions are
available at this point.

4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We acknowledge Energy of Portugal EDP for the financial and technical support to this project; Smith Schneider
acknowledges CNPq for his research grant (PQ305357/2013-1). Gonçalves Pohlmann thanks Capes for her postdoctoral
fellowship.

5. REFERENCES

Ballester J., Jiménez S., 2005. Kinetic parameters for the oxidation of pulverized coal as measured from drop tube
tests. Combustion and Flame, vol. 142, pp. 210−222.
Costa F.F., Wang G., Costa M., 2015. Combustion kinetics and particle fragmentation of raw and torrified pine
shells and olive stones in a drop tube furnace. Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, vol. 35, pp. 3591-3599.
Fiel M.A., 1969. Rate of combustion of size-graded fractions of char from a low-rank coal between 1200°k and
2000°k. Combustion and Flame, vol. 13, pp. 237-252.
Pereira S., Martins P.C.R., Costa M., 2016. Kinetics of poplar short rotation coppice obtained from
thermogravimetric and drop tube furnace experiments. Energy & Fuels, vol. 30, pp. 6525-6536.
Smith I.W., 1971. Kinetics of Combustion of S e-Graded Pulverized Fuels in the Temperature Range 1200-2270 K.
Combustion and Flame, vol. 17, pp. 303-314.
Smith S.E., Neavel R.C., Hippo E.J., Miller R.N., 1981. DTGA combustion of coals in the Exxon coals library.
Fuel, vol. 60, pp. 458-462.

6. RESPONSIBILITY NOTICE

The authors are the only responsible for the printed material included in this paper.