• Energy Research

This work aims to investigate and develop a method to evaluate and predict the combustion behaviour and combustion efficiency of different biomass commonly used in power plants via simple characterisation methods. 11 types of agricultural and industrial wastes were characterised using thermogravimetric analyser to obtain the derivative thermogravimetric (DTG) data and kinetic parameters. For the samples tested, the initiation temperatures were found to be in the range between 224.39 0 C and 260.33 0 C, whilst the local minimum temperatures between 2 peaks were within the range of 360.36 to 382.74 0 C. It was established that there is a clear, direct relationship between the pre-exponential factor and the temperature interval for the first step of combustion. This trend was apparent and recorded for the 2 heating rates tested. © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of ICAE2018 - The 10th International Conference on Applied Energy.

This research focuses on the non-isothermal CO2 gasification and pyrolysis reactivity via thermogravimetric analysis. It was found that CO2 decreased activation energy of all four types of oil shale (Fushun, Jinzhou, Wulin, Xingsheng). Activation energy of XS oil shale was highly reduced from 59.86 kJ/mol to 9.48 kJ/mol. Reactivity index results showed that WL and XS oil shales were observed to be more dependent on CO2 atmosphere. Alkali metal oxide also contributed to thermal decomposition according to thermogravimetric (TG) and differential thermal analysis (DTG) curves during CO2 gasification process. Overall, CO2 atmosphere can be used to improve oil shale decomposition, especially for alkali- rich shales, while providing an efficient and effective means to convert greenhouse gases into useful fuels. © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of ICAE2018 - The 10th International Conference on Applied Energy.