Energy & Fuels, Vol.18, No.3, 611-618, 2004
Relation between the petrographic composition of coal and the morphology of pyrolysis char produced in fluidized bed
Several previous studies have already established, for pulverized coal combustion conditions, global correlations between petrographic composition of the coal and those of char produced from the same coal. However, for fluidized bed combustion, there has not been much new work since the eighties. The results presented in this paper include the petrographic characterization of seven different coals from several origins and also of their respective chars produced at 700 degreesC, 800 degreesC, 900 degreesC, and 1000 degreesC in a laboratory fluidized bed reactor. The results show a marked predominance of tenuispheres as the trial temperatures increase. While vitrinite-rich coals essentially produced highly porous chars, the inertinite-rich coals produced large amounts of medium- and low-porous chars. Semi-anthracite vitrinite produced high-porous chars and thermal affected coal particles originated low-porous and angular char morphotypes. The analysis of the data obtained revealed that vitrinite + liptinite related well with the high-porous char (sum of cenospheres and tenuinetworks), classified as Group 1. The same trend, but with a weaker relation, was also observed between vitrinite and liptinite rich microlithotypes and Group 1.