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Enhancement of petroleum coke thermal reactivity using Oxy‐cracking technique
Author(s) -
Manasrah Abdallah D.,
Hassan Azfar,
Nassar Nashaat N.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the canadian journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.404
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1939-019X
pISSN - 0008-4034
DOI - 10.1002/cjce.23574
Subject(s) - petroleum coke , combustion , thermogravimetric analysis , cracking , ignition system , coke , materials science , nitrogen , sulfur , autoignition temperature , chemical engineering , chemistry , metallurgy , composite material , organic chemistry , thermodynamics , engineering , physics
Petroleum coke (petcoke) is a challenging fuel in terms of its complexity, high sulphur and nitrogen content, low volatile content, and undesirable emissions of SOx and NOx when used for power generation. To overcome these challenges, the oxy‐cracking process was recently proposed to convert the petcoke into a clean combustion fuel by reducing its sulphur and nitrogen contents, and consequently increasing its reactivity and combustibility. This work aimed to study the heating values and thermo‐oxidative behaviour of the oxy‐cracked petcoke, virgin petcoke, and their blends using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results showed that the oxy‐cracked petcoke is oxidized at a temperature of 475 °C, which is easier and faster than the virgin petcoke, which is usually oxidized at around 540 °C. The heating value of the oxy‐cracked petcoke was not impacted and maintained constant ~30 MJ/kg, which is relatively similar to the virgin petcoke. The nitrogen and sulphur content in the oxy‐cracked petcoke is much lower than that of virgin petcoke. A significant improvement in the combustion performance parameters of the oxy‐cracked petcoke and their blends with virgin petcoke was achieved. For instance, the ignition temperature of the proposed fuel is reduced to 13 % compared to the virgin petcoke, which led to increasing the ignition index by two‐folds. Therefore, this approach might help in improving the thermal efficiency of petcoke by using oxy‐cracked products as an initiator in the combustion process.