Nitrogen release during thermochemical conversion of single coal pellets in highly preheated mixtures of oxygen and nitrogen

In this investigation, single coal particles (pellets) were combusted in highly preheated oxidants (873–1273 K) with oxygen concentrations ranging from 0% to 100%, using a small scale‘ batch reactor. In base of the experimental results, the influence of oxygen concentration and oxidizer temperature on total mass conversion, the release of fuel nitrogen and the fraction of fuel nitrogen that is oxidized to NOx, is discussed. For oxygen concentration 5–21%, the rate of the thermochemical conversion was shown to be almost independent oxygen concentration when oxidant temperatures of 1073–1273 K were used. The opposite was true for an oxidant temperature of 873 K. Thus there appears to be an oxidant temperature above which devolatilisation is controlled by convective heat transfer rather than reaction. Further it was shown that the release of fuel nitrogen was promoted by an increased oxygen concentration (from 5% to 21% at 1273 K) and an increase of oxidant temperature (from 1073 K to 1273 K at 21% oxygen). An estimate of the devolatilisation of nitrogen from the measured pellet temperature indicated that the devolatilisation of nitrogen is significantly delayed with respect to other components. In fact, during the very initial part of the thermochemical conversion, most released nitrogen appeared to follow the route via char rather than via devolatilisation. Favorable conditions for NO reduction thanks to a prompt devolatilisation contemporarily to a release of fuel nitrogen via the char route was believed to be one of the explanation for the evidenced low ratios between NOx emissions and fuel nitrogen released, particularly in the beginning of the experiment. The fact that the amount of released fuel nitrogen that is oxidized to NOx was shown to decrease with increasing oxidant temperatures from 1073 K to 1273 K supports this interpretation, though a higher temperature of the oxidant creates higher devolatilisation rates.