Microwave-Assisted Natural Gas conversion in presence of Low Rank Coal

Conversion of low rank coal (LRC) into chemicals is one of the challenging chemical processes due to its low heat value, high moisture, ash, and sulfur contents. In this work, we studied the direct conversion of natural gas in presence of LRC into value added chemicals. The addition of methane during microwave-assisted pyrolysis of LRC influenced both the char structure and stability and shift the product distribution of gases and tars formed during the reaction. The initial results suggested that the presence of methane helped in reducing and breaking down heavy tars into useful aromatic compounds such as benzene and toluene. The structure-reactivity of generated chars was also investigated under different methane concentrations (0, 25, 50 and 90 % balanced in Ar) using a variety of characterization tools such as XRD, BET, SEM/EDS, dielectric properties, and Raman. Finally, the char reactivity towards combustion will be discussed.