COMPARISON OF STEAM GASIFICATION RATES OF VARIOUS ACTIVATED CARBONS BY TGA METHOD

Abstract

Thermogravimetric analysis was utilized to study kinetics of the activated carbon-steam reaction for five different carbons. The experimental results show that the heating rate of samples has very little effect on the values of the activation energy (E) and the reaction rate constant (K). The activation energy of gasification increases and passes through a maximum as the weight of a sample decreases, except for DARCO activated carbon. Initial rate of gasification increases with steam concentration for all the carbons. The calculated activation energies and initial reaction rate constants (k₁₀₇₃) were between 180 and 280kJ/mol, and 2.76 × 10^-5 and 3.05 × 10^-4s^-1, respectively.