Thermal behavior and pyrolytic kinetics of palm kernel shells and Indian lignite coal at various blending ratios

The study presents the effect of heating rate on thermal degradation kinetics of gasification and cogasification of palm kernel shell (PKS) and low-grade Indian coal (LC) at various blends. The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and pyrolytic kinetics of PKS and LC were investigated by heating up to 1000 °C at a different heating rate of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 °C/min. With the increase of heating rate, the TG profile of both PKS and LC were found different. For the gasification kinetics of PKS and LC, the activation energy (E) was 56.92 and 74.69 kJ/mol along with the exponential factor (A) as 9.391 × 103 and 6.740 × 103 min−1 respectively. In case of cogasification studies, the activation energy for the blends of PKS and LC at various ratios were found lowered to the range of 56-66 kJ/mol. This study could propose the appropriate blending ratio of PKS with LC for co-gasification at ease.