Estimating thermodynamic properties of coal, char, tar and ash

Abstract Methods for predicting the specific heat, enthalpy, and entropy of coal, char, tar and ash as a function of temperature and material composition are presented. The standard entropy of coal is approximated by comparing the behavior of the standard entropies of a number of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons as a function of the variables H/(C + N), O/(C + N), N/(C + N), and S/(C + N), where the variables are the atomic fractions of the respective elements. The standard entropy of a bituminous coal was found to be about 20 kJ/kmol carbon K and of the char to be about 10 kJ/kmol carbon K. Estimates of the enthalpy difference between 273 K and temperatures above 273 K deviated from published data by about 8.49% for chars and 8.55% for coals on the average. Maximum deviations of 18.3% and 17.6% respectively were found.