Fuel nitrogen conversion and release of nitrogen oxides during coal gangue calcination.

The pollution emission during the widespread utilization of coal gangue in construction industry has long been neglected. In present study, the NO x release behaviors in a simulation experiment of coal gangue calcination in construction industry were systematically investigated. The corresponding evolution of nitrogen functionalities in coal gangue was also discussed. Results showed that pyrrolic (N-5) and pyridine N-oxide (N-6-O) forms nitrogen were relatively abundant in the raw gangue. During calcination, the N-5 and N-6-O form nitrogen greatly decreased and converted to quaternary nitrogen (N-Q). It was found that NO2 was formed under slowly heating-up condition and at 600 °C under isothermal condition, while only NO was detected with further increase of temperature. From 600 to 1000 °C, the conversion ratio of fuel nitrogen to NO x increased from 8 to 12 %. The char nitrogen was found greatly contribute to NO formation, which may bring difficulty to the abatement of NO x emission during coal gangue calcination.