Study on pressurized isothermal pyrolysis characteristics of low-rank coal in a pressurized micro-fluidized bed reaction analyzer

In order to investigate the pressurized isothermal pyrolysis characteristics of coal, the effect of pressure on gas release characteristics and the kinetics of pressurized isothermal pyrolysis are explored for the first time in a pressurized micro-fluidized bed reaction analyzer (P-MFBRA). This work finds that the yields of CO2, CO, CH4, and H2 increases with temperature and pressure. The difference in the order of gas-releasing reduces as temperature and pressure rises, but that of gas-ending first decreases and then increases with pressure. The most probable mechanism functions of CO2, CO and CH4 change from shrinking core model to homogeneous model at 1 MPa, 0.8 MPa and 0.5 MPa, respectively, showing that reaction is controlled by chemistry under low pressure but affected by diffusion effect with elevating pressure. The rate constant and activation energy (Ea) of each gas appear an increasing-decreasing tendency and the difference between Ea of each gas reduces with pressure. Compared with non-isothermal experiments, the Ea (20.8–475 kJ mol−1) and pre-exponential factor in P-MFBRA are less than those (70–150 kJ mol−1) in the pressurized thermogravimetric analyzer (P-TGA), indicating P-MFBRA can effectively reduce the diffusion inhibition, and the kinetics obtained is close to the reaction in industrial fluidized bed reactor.