Sulfur distribution in coke and sulfur removal during pyrolysis

In order to investigate the mechanisms of coke desulfurization by blowing additional gas into coking chamber during pyrolysis process, some experiments were conducted to study the effects of some factors on the distribution of sulfur in coke. These factors include pyrolysis temperatures, the kinds of the blowing gases and the diameters of coking chamber. It was found that sulfur was mainly released at the range of 300–600 °C. Under this temperature range, the sulfur content in coke can be reduced by 0.05–0.06% by blowing N2, CO or CH4, and by 0.14% by blowing H2 at a space velocity of 1.2 mm/s compared with the absolute sulfur content of 0.92% in the case without gas feeding. Obviously, H2 is more effective on sulfur removal than N2, CO or CH4. The total, organic and inorganic sulfur contents in coke increase with increasing the diameter of coking chamber under identical pyrolysis conditions. Both organic and inorganic sulfur contents in coke increase regularly from the center to brim at identical height of a coke column for all the cases. In addition, the organic and inorganic sulfur contents at the cranny surface are higher than those in interior at the same sampling position. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses suggest that the main contributions to the increase of inorganic and organic sulfur contents are due to the formation of negative bivalent sulfur and thiophenic compounds, respectively.