On the rank-dependence of coal tar secondary reactions

The secondary reactions of volatile compounds, including coal tar and light gases, accounts for a great portion of soot formation and the subsequent heat release and pollutant emissions in the combustion zone. While coal primary pyrolysis has been extensively studied over the last few decades and several network pyrolysis models has been developed to describe this process, coal secondary pyrolysis is still not well understood. The Babcock and Wilcox Company has been investigating coal secondary pyrolysis in order to develop a comprehensive mechanism for inclusion in predictive computational fluid dynamics and coal combustion models. Supportive experiments were carried out in an entrained-flow reactor. Tar was extracted from the pyrolysis byproducts of seven coals of widely-distributed rank at temperatures ranging from 923 to 1473 K, and analyzed by ¹³C NMR. Tars formed from higher rank coals generally demonstrated higher sooting propensities. This rank-dependent sooting propensity is associated with tar’s chemical structure properties. With increased heat treatment severity, tar molecules lose a substantial amount of aliphatic attachments, and the average size of substitution per cluster decreases. Compared to tars formed from high-rank bituminous coals, those formed from low-rank sub-bituminous coals have a larger attachment portion, higher averaged substitution, and higher oxygen-containing functional groups. These differences contribute to the higher cracking propensity observed for low-rank coal tars.