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A novel understanding of combustion behavior of coals by cone calorimeter

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Abstract

Coal has played a significant role in daily life. However, the highly effective combustion and reducing combustion-caused hazards of the coal still hold a great challenge. In this work, effect of particle size on combustion behaviors of two kinds of coals, i.e., Tashan weakly caking coal (TS) and Ningxia coking coal (NX), was studied by the cone calorimeter. The results obtained from cone calorimeter testing indicated that the time to ignition and the values of peak of heat release rate of TS and NX coal samples increased with increasing their particle size. TS coal samples showed an increased content of char residues with the increment in the particle size, whereas the char residues of NX were decreased with the increase in the particle size. The total smoke production values of the TS coal samples were increased as the particle size increased, whereas NX coal samples presented an opposite trend in the total smoke production. This phenomenon is caused by the difference in density of char residues during the combustion process of the coal samples. With regard to the volatile gaseous release, it was noted that the highest total carbon monoxide yield of TS was higher than that of NX. In addition, the total carbon dioxide yields of TS and NX coal samples were decreased with the increase in the particle size. This work paves a potential pathway to explore highly effective burning model of coal.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51803031, 71804026, 51774182, 51704079 and 51874100), the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (Grant No. 2018J05078) and the Opening Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Safety Technology (Grant No. SKLCMST101).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environment and Resources, Fuzhou University, 2 Xueyuan Road, Fuzhou, 350116, People’s Republic of China

    Chuan Liu, Jian Yang, Su Zhang, Yongqian Shi, Fuqiang Yang, Ye Yang, Yanzhen Zhuang & Yating Ye

  2. College of Civil Engineering, Fuzhou University, 2 Xueyuan Road, Fuzhou, 350116, People’s Republic of China

    Libi Fu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Safety Technology, CCTEG Shenyang Research Institute, Fushun, 113122, Liaoning, People’s Republic of China

    Liancong Wang

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  1. Chuan Liu
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Correspondence to Libi Fu, Yongqian Shi or Liancong Wang.

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Liu, C., Fu, L., Yang, J. et al. A novel understanding of combustion behavior of coals by cone calorimeter. J Therm Anal Calorim 143, 139–150 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-019-09250-0

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