A review on Botswana coal potential from a pyrolysis and gasification perspective

Abstract: Coal pyrolysis and gasication are promising options for the future of Botswana as the country has large coal reserves with severe limitations in terms of export options. Coal characterization facilities will be required in order to harness its full potential and methods such as proximate, ultimate and chemical structure analysis (FTIR, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diraction techniques) were investigated. The paper presents a brief history of pyrolysis and gasication, typical types of the reactors as well as factors that inuence product selection for Botswana coal. Coal pyrolysis and gasication are complex processes and it is dicult to dene the mechanisms of product formation. However, there are several kinetic models that are relevant to the sub-bituminous coal of Botswana which were proposed by researchers to describe the formation of the compounds and mathematical models that were validated by other researchers on mass and heat transfer as also presented herein