The Pyrolysis Behavior of Victorian Lignite at Elevated Pressures: Contrast to Bituminous Coal

Victorian lignites (brown coals) in Australia have long been the mainstay of the Victorian economy, providing low-cost electricity to the state. In order to secure energy supplies for the future and to reduce the environmental impacts of power generation using the lignites, the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Clean Power from Lignite is developing an Advanced Pressurized Fluidized-Bed Combustion (APFBC) technology for power generation from the lignites. In the APFBC system, the lignite will be firstly dried. The dried lignite will then be pyrolyzed and partially gasified before the resulting char is burned in a pressurized fluidized-bed combustor. Simulation studies carried out in the CRC show that the APFBC system using the lignites could achieve an efficiency of more than 44 percent, approaching that of a similar system using bituminous coals. This would represent more than a 33 percent reduction of CO2 emissions in comparison with the current pulverized-fuel combustion systems.