Kinetics of petroleum coke/biomass blends during co-gasification

The co-gasification behavior and synergistic effect of petroleum coke, biomass, and their blends were studied by thermogravimetric analysis under CO2 atmosphere at different heating rates. The isoconversional method was used to calculate the activation energy. The results showed that the gasification process occurred in two stages: pyrolysis and char gasification. A synergistic effect was observed in the char gasification stage. This effect was caused by alkali and alkaline earth metals in the biomass ash. Kinetics analysis showed that the activation energy in the pyrolysis stage was less than that in the char gasification stage. In the char gasification stage, the activation energy was 129.1-177.8 kJ/mol for petroleum coke, whereas it was 120.3-150.5 kJ/mol for biomass. We also observed that the activation energy calculated by the Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO) method were larger than those calculated by the Kissinger-Akahira-Sunosen (KAS) method. When the conversion was 1.0, the activation energy was 106.2 kJ/mol when calculated by the KAS method, whereas it was 120.3 kJ/mol when calculated by the FWO method.