Gasification of carbon by CO2: a transient kinetics experiment

A transient kinetic technique was used to measure the intrinsic rate constant k2 of the reaction C(O) → CO + Cf, where Cf is an available site and C(O) is an occupied site. It was found that k2 = 1011.6 ± 2.3 exp[ −(225 000 ± 39000)/RT]min−1. Two systems were studied, one using an uncatalysed carbon, the other a Ca-catalysed carbon. The gasification rates for these two systems differed by a factor of 100, yet they yielded the same k2. This strongly supports the contention that Ca catalyses the system by increasing the number of active sites.