Investigation on combustion of high-sulfur coal catalyzed with industrial waste slags.

With the exhaustion and deterioration of coal resource, a lot of research has been focused on improving the combustion efficiency all over the world, especially in China, in recent years. In this study, several industrial waste slags, which can decrease the ignition temperature, including the gasification slag, deactivated methanol catalyst and furnace slag, are reused as catalysts to improve the combustion efficiency of high-sulfur coal. The kinetic analysis of combustion reaction using Coats-Redfern's model indicates that the industrial waste slags could efficiently reduce the activation energy of coal ignition. By comparing and analyzing the composition of the waste slags with TG-DTG, XRD and XRF, the efficiency of combustion-supporting of the waste slags was confirmed and optimized. • Three kinds of industrial waste slags are reused as catalysts of coal combustion. • The kinetic analysis indicates the activation energy of coal ignition reduces. • The combustion efficiency of high-sulfur coal can be improved by the waste slags. • Gasification slag is verified that the effect of combustion-supporting is the best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]