Physico-Chemical Structure and Gasification Performance of Co-Pyrolytic Char Produced by the Pyrolysis of Polyvinyl Chloride Blends with Two Rank Coals

Co-pyrolysis of waste plastics and coal has been considered to be an environmentally friendly and scalable waste treatment technology. This study investigated the influence of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) on the physico-chemical structure and gasification performance of co-pyrolytic char with lignite (PZ) and bituminous (SM) coal. The structure characteristics were explored by applying an X-ray diffractometer and a specific surface area analyzer. The quantitative analysis on the influence of PVC on pore characteristics and carbon microcrystal structure was conducted by the fractal theory and deconvolution method. The gasification performance was explored using a thermogravimetric analyzer. When the PZ blending ratio was larger than 50%, the specific surface area of PVCPZ chars enlarged significantly due to the increment of mesopores. Nevertheless, the effect of SM on the pore structure was not pronounced, and the specific surface area of PVCSM chars was as small as PVC char. A higher PZ blending ratio benefited the formation of mesopores with an aperture smaller than 10 nm for PVCPZ chars, whereas SM had little influence on pore diameter distributions of PVCSM chars attributed to the remarkable coating effects. The values of fractal dimension of co-pyrolytic char were larger than PVC char, revealing that the adjunction of coal increased the pore surface coarseness and improved the complicacy of the pore structure. Quantitative analysis on XRD spectra indicated that the disorder extent of the carbon structure was improved because of coal addition, and the influence of lignite on the disorder degree of the carbon structure was more significant. The gasification reaction of co-pyrolytic char showed significant synergistic effects, resulting in the improvement of gasification performance.