Study on the ash fusion temperatures of coal and sewage sludge mixtures

The coal, sewage sludge, water and chemical additives are milled to produce coal–sludge slurry as a substitute for coal–water slurry in entrained-flow gasification, co-gasification of coal and sewages sludge can be achieved. The ash fusion temperature is an important factor on the entrained-flow gasifier operation. In this study, the ash fusion temperatures (DT, ST, HT and FT) of three kinds of coals (A, B and C), two kinds of sewage sludges (W1 and W2) and series of coal–sewage blends were determined, and the mineral composition during the ash melting process was analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results showed that the ash fusion temperatures of most coal–sewage blends are lower than those of the coals and sewage sludges. The ashes have different mineral composition at different temperature during the heating process. It was found that the mineral composition of AW1 blend ash is located in the low-temperature eutectic region of the ternary phase diagram of SiO2–Al2O3–CaO. The minerals found in BW1 blend ash are almost the same as those in B coal ash. Kyanite is detected in CW1 blend ash, which results in the ash fusion temperatures of CW1 blend ash higher than those of C coal. We found that sodium mineral matters are formed because of NaOH added to W2, which can reduce the ash fusion temperature of coal–sewage blends.