Thermal Behaviour, Reactivity and Synergistic Effect Analyses of Petroleum Coke and Sugar Cane Bagasse Chars During Co-gasification

Petroleum coke (PC) is found to have lower reactivity, high sulphur and vanadium oxide contents; hence, mixing with other biomass is required. In this study, PC, sugar cane bagasse (SCB) and their blends at temperatures of 500, 800 and 900 °C (denoted as PC: SCB5, PC:SCB8 and PC: SCB9) were investigated using a thermogravimetric analyser (TGA) under non-isothermal conditions at a heating rate of 20 °C min1. The derivatives thermogravimetric (DTG) curves were obtained experimentally. The results showed that pyrolysis temperature and blending ratio significantly affect the behaviour and the reactivity of PC. The DTG for PC was 15.44%, but for SCB chars, PC: SCB5, PC: SCB8 and PC: SCB9 were in the range of 6.28– 6.66, 4.63– 8.48, 4.97– 8.58 and 4.97–12.10% respectively. The thermal behavior of PC, SCB char and the blends was found to be completed in a single stage. PC reactivity improved by 26.72% with the addition of SCB chars. Synergistic effect was found to be varied, but among the samples, PC: SCB5 at a blend ratio of 1:1 showed the most synergistic effect.