• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.191-199
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• 2011

The char burn-out and NOx emissions from sub-bituminous coal were investigated in drop tube furnace under $O_2/N_2$ and $O_2/CO_2$ environments with different $O_2$ concentrations of 12, 21 and 31%. Results show that the char burn-out rate is faster as $O_2$ concentration increases higher and char burn-out rate under $O_2/CO_2$ decreases due to the lower oxygen diffusion into coal surface through the $CO_2$ rich boundary layer. NO concentration increases with increasing $O_2$ concentration, but declines at $O_2$ concentration of 31%. Meanwhile, NO emission indexes decreases monotonically with increasing $O_2$ concentration, which indicates that more NO reduction occurs with higher $O_2$ concentration probably due to greater HCN formation. For all conditions of $O_2$ concentration, the NO concentration under $O_2/N_2$ maintains higher than those of $O_2/CO_2$ due to presence of thermal NO.