What is a coal ? When we react it with oxygen what it gives answer with reaction and when react in absence of oxygen what it gives?
Answers
Answer:
The most common and important use of coal is in combustion, in which heat is generated to produce steam, which in turn powers the turbines that produce electricity. Combustion for electricity generation by utilities is the end use for 86 percent of the coal mined in the United States.
Combustion reactions
The main chemical reactions that contribute to heat release are oxidation reactions, which convert the constituent elements of coal into their respective oxides, as shown in the Table. In the table, the negative signs indicate reactions that release heat (exothermic reactions), whereas the positive sign indicates a reaction that absorbs heat (endothermic reaction).
Principal oxidation reactions in the combustion of coal
reaction change in heat (in British thermal units per pound-mole)
carbon + oxygen = carbon dioxide −169,293
hydrogen + oxygen = water −122,971
sulfur + oxygen = sulfur dioxide −127,728
nitrogen + oxygen = nitrogen monoxide +77,760
The combustion of a coal particle occurs primarily in two stages: (1) evolution of volatile matter during the initial stages of heating, with accompanying physical and chemical changes, and (2) subsequent combustion of the residual char. Following ignition and combustion of the evolving volatile matter, oxygen diffuses to the surface of the particle and ignites the char. In some instances, ignition of volatile matter and char occurs simultaneously. The steps involved in char oxidation are as follows:
Diffusion of oxygen from the bulk gas to the char surface
Reaction between oxygen and the surface of the char particle
Diffusion of reaction products from the surface of the char particle into the bulk gas
At low combustion temperatures, the rate of the chemical reaction (step 2) determines (or limits) the overall reaction rate. However, since the rate of a chemical reaction increases exponentially with temperature, the carbon-oxygen reaction (step 2) can become so fast at high temperatures that the diffusion of oxygen to the surface (step 1) can no longer keep up. In this case, the overall reaction rate is controlled or limited by the diffusion rate of oxygen to the reacting char surface. The controlling mechanism of the combustion reaction therefore depends on such parameters as particle size, reaction temperature, and inherent reactivity of the coal particle.
Combustion systems
Fixed bed
In fixed-bed systems, lumps of coal, usually size-graded between 3 and 50 millimetres, are heaped onto a grate, and preheated primary air (called underfire air) is blown from under the bed to burn the fixed carbon. Some secondary air (overfire air) is introduced over the coal bed to burn the volatiles released from the bed. Based on the method of feeding the coal, these systems can be further classified into underfeed, overfeed, spreader, and traveling-grate stoker methods.
The coking characteristics of a coal can influence its combustion behaviour by forming clinkers of coke and ash and thus resisting proper air distribution through the bed. Fines in the coal feed can also cause uneven distribution of air, but this problem can be reduced by adding some water to the feed coal. This procedure, known as tempering, reduces resistance to airflow by agglomerating the fines.
The relatively large coal feed size used in fixed-bed systems limits the rate of heating of the particles to about 1 °C per second, thereby establishing the time required for combustion of the particles at about 45 to 60 minutes. In addition, the sizes of the grates in these systems impose an upper limit on a fixed-bed combustor of about 100,000 megajoules (108 British thermal units) per hour. Therefore, this type of system is limited to industrial and small-scale power plants.