Pyrolysis behavior of coal and petroleum coke at high temperature and high pressure

While pyrolysis of coal is a well-studied thermal process, little is known about pressurized pyrolysis of coal and petroleum coke. This study aims to interpret the major differences of pyrolysis via high temperature and high pressure studies with a bituminous coal, a lignite coal, and a petroleum coke. The findings of these studies will be able to expand on the narrow quantity of petroleum coke pyrolysis and offer methods of devolatilization via bench-scale laminar entrained-flow and pressurized wire-mesh heaters. In addition, the findings for the two coal ranks will add to the breadth of knowledge already published, and lend credibility to conclusions made concerning petroleum coke. The first method explored in characterizing coal and petroleum coke pyrolysis was tests conducted at high temperature (1000 ? to 1400 ?) and atmospheric pressure (13 psia). Varied oxygen content was used to switch from pyrolysis to gasification conditions and chosen based on a statistical Design of Experiments approach. Previous studies indicate that as temperature or heating rate increase, so do volatiles yield and particle swelling ratio. The second set of experiments performed was at high temperatures as well (1000 ? to 1200 ?, but the pressure was greatly increased (13 to 915 psia). This is because many industrial gasifiers are operated at higher pressures to achieve greater efficiency. The data generated will be used to predict gasifier behavior in The University of Utah?s entrained-flow gasifier and hopefully aid in commercial applications like the large dual entrained-flow gasifiers housed by Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport, Tennessee.