Kinetic study on catalytic gasification of a modified sludge fuel

A new type of mixture fuel, sludge–oil–coal agglomerate (SOCA), was catalytically gasified with steam in a thermobalance reactor under atmospheric pressure. All the four catalysts studied (K2CO3, CaO, NiO and Fe2O3) were found capable of enhancing the steam gasification rate and significantly increasing the conversion of carbon. The ranking of catalytic activity was found to be K2CO3 ≫ CaO > NiO > Fe2O3. A modified volumetric-reaction model in the literature was used to describe the conversion behavior of the steam gasification studied by evaluating the kinetic parameters. Expressions of the apparent gasification rates for SOCA were presented for the design of catalytic gasification processes.