Influence of bio-coal ash respectively coal structure on coke production and coke quality

In recent years, the consequences of global warming have increased the discussion about the climate impact caused by humans and the fossil emissions. Sweden has decided to reduce the negative climate impact with a zero vision for the fossil carbon dioxide emissions in year 2045. In order to achieve this, great efforts and changes are needed both in the inhabitants' way of living but primarily in the base industry. The major cause is the use of fossil coal, which generates fossil carbon dioxide in the steel industry in particular. The fossil coal is added to the blast furnace in the steel process in forms of coke and coal, which reduces the iron and emits heat. The quality of the coke is important as it functions reducing agent, provides a mechanical support to the bed and enables the gas flow up through the blast furnace and enables dissolution of carbon in hot metal. Also, coke supplies energy from exothermic reactions between carbon and carbon dioxide that takes part in the blast furnace and the energy are further used for the heating and melting of the cold iron pellets. Due to these factors, the blast furnace process is dependent on coke for its function, which means that the entire process must be replaced if the steel production should work without fossil coal. However, there are many studies that have been done on how to replace some of the fossil coal with bio-coal, which is produced from biomass. If some of the fossil coal could be replaced by some bio-coal, this would mean that fossil carbon dioxide emissions would decrease and lead to a reduced climate impact. The process would still generate carbon dioxide, but on the other hand, a cycle would be formed because when biomass is grown, carbon dioxide is taken up, e.g. by the trees grown for this purpose. However, bio-coal does not have the same properties as fossil coal, which in turn affects the quality of the coke. Bio-coke is more reactive and more porous than fossil coke. In order to be able to replace fossil coke with bio-coke, it is likely necessary to pre-treat the biocoal before it replaces part of the fossil coal in the coke production. Bio-coal contains ash that acts as an internal catalyst. One theory is that if it is possible to produce a bio-coal with ash-free carbon structure, it can be used in the production of coke without having such a great effect on the coke quality. In this project, the ash's impact on the properties of bio-coal in coke was studied. Previous studies have shown that leaching is an effective method for removing ash from bio-coal. It can be leached in three different ways, either with water, weak acid or acid. However, it has been found that acid leaching has a certain impact on the carbon structure itself. For this reason, two types of bio-coal, torrefied Grot (forest residue) and torrefied sawdust were selected, which were leached both with water but also with weak acid in order to achieve an ash-reduced carbon structure. The acid selected was acetic acid, as it has been tested for similar purposes in previous studies. The leaching efficiency was evaluated by analysing the leachate with ICP-OES after leaching. According to the result, a significant part of the ash had been leached out, but the leaching with weak acid was much more effective than water leaching. To ensure that the carbon structure was not altered, light-optical microscopy was made which showed that the structure was intact. However, it was not possible to determine whether the pore sizes were changed after leaching and it is therefore relevant to investigate this further. Moreover, the leached II bio-coal replaced 5% of the fossil coal in the coal mixture for coke making. In addition to this, coke was also made with only the ash from the two bio-coals to see what effect the ash has on the coke quality. The result that was obtained from the TGA showed that the ash had a low impact on the reactivity of the coke. However, the coal structure of the coke had a great impact on the reactivity behaviour. Keywords: Bio-coke, bio-coal, leaching, ash, coke quality, carbon structures, torrefied sawdus