Ignition and combustion behaviors of single coal slime particles in CO2/O2 atmosphere

Coal slime, a low-calorific-value fuel, is a by-product during coal washing, which can be disposed in quantity and fully utilized in circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boiler. This research paid attention to the ignition and combustion behaviors of single coal slime particles, which affect the normal combustion, operation stability and burning efficiency in circulating fluidized bed boiler. The ignition and combustion behaviors including ignition mechanism, ignition delay, ignition temperature and combustion process of single coal slime particles in a vertical heating tube furnace in CO2/O2 atmosphere were researched under different operation condition parameters, for different gas temperatures (Tg = 923, 1073, and 1173 K), gas flow rates (V = 0-20 L/min), and oxygen mole concentrations (O2% = 5-80%). Coal slime particle had three ignition mechanisms in CO2/O2 atmosphere, namely, homogeneous ignition of volatiles at the windward and leeside of particle, heterogeneous ignition of char and heterogeneous ignition of coal. Only heterogeneous ignition of char and homogeneous ignition of volatiles at the windward of particle occurred in quiescent atmosphere. However, homogeneous ignition region decreased while heterogeneous ignition region increased gradually with the increasing flow rates in the oxygen concentration-gas temperature plane. Different ignition mechanisms were accompanied with various combustion processes. The combustion processes corresponding to heterogeneous ignition of char changed from flameless combustion to flaming combustion as oxygen concentration increased. Moreover, the critical oxygen concentration elevated from 30% to 50% with the increasing flow rate. The ignition temperatures and ignition delays decreased with the increasing gas temperature and oxygen concentration. As the flow rate increased, the trends became more obvious in medium-to-low oxygen concentrations. Compared with the ignition characteristics and combustion processes of coal slime particles in N2/O2 atmosphere, those in CO2/O2 atmosphere were suppressed due to the higher mole heat capacity and lower diffusion rate of oxygen molecule in CO2.