Depth of combustion inside char from evidence of oxidized pyrite

In coal combustion processes the rate controlling mechanism varies from external diffusion and pore diffusion to chemical kinetics. The particle zone where combustion takes place therefore changes from the outer layer, for large particles at high temperatures, to the total internal pore volume, for small particles at low temperatures. Partial penetration of oxygen occurs in intermediate cases. Recent publications report on fluidized bed experiments where, according to the model used, combustion takes place at or near the outer surface of the particle (‘shrinking particle model’) in a narrow boundary layer. Knowledge of the depth of this layer could contribute to combustion modelling. This paper shows that during fluidized bed combustion at 900 °C oxygen penetrates into the char to a depth of 50–100 μm. This is concluded from the width of the zone where pyrite particles in the char are oxidized. The presence of open pores may increase the depth of the internal combustion layer up to several hundreds of micrometres.