An Investigation into the Combustion of Mixed Fuel Consisting of Bituminous Coal and Crude Bio-oil

The combustion of bituminous coal, bio-oil, and their slurry mixtures were performed under air atmosphere using Thermogravimetric Analyzer (TGA). All samples were run from room temperature to 110°C and held for 10 minutes before the temperature was ramped at the heating rate of 10oC/min to 1100oC.Kinetic evaluation was conducted using a simple Arrhenius-type kinetic model with first-order decomposition reaction. Apparent activation energy, Ea, and pre-exponential factor, A, were calculated from the modelling equation. Results reveal that the reactivity of CBS fuel is higher than a single coal fuel to which the addition of bio-oil helps to increase the combustion performance of the blends. The optimum fuel ratio appears at 50:50 ratio with equal contribution of coal and bio-oil properties that contribute to the increase in volatile matter causing maximum combustion rate achievable at much lower temperature compared to single coal fuel.