Abstract

With the depletion of fossil fuel and the concern about environmental issues, the utilization of biomass resources has attracted increasing worldwide interest. The pyrolysis behavior of capsicum stalks and Baoji coal mixtures was investigated by TG-DSC. Results show that the thermal degradation temperature range of capsicum stalks was 290 to 387°C, while that of Baoji coal was 416 to 586°C. According to the comparison of experimental values and calculation results basedon the algebraic sum of the fraction of individual mixture samples, the synergistic effect was significant at temperature ranges of 314 to 369 and 431 to 578°C. The synergistic effect could also be seen from the kinetic studies performed according to the Fried man Method. The rate of mass loss and k in the experiment is higher than the calculated values in the range of 314 to 368°C and that in the experiment is lower than the calculated values in the range of 431 to 578°C. Meanwhile, it wasindicated that the pyrolysis process of capsicum stalks, Baoji coal and their mixtures could be described by one, two and four first order reactions, respectively.

Key word: Pyrolysis, capsicum stalks, mixing rate, kinetics, synergistic effect.

Abbreviation

Abbreviations: CS, Capsicum stalks; IGCC, integrated gasification combined cycle; BC, Baoji coal; DSC, differential scanning calorimetry; TG,thermogravimetry.