Fuel 79 (2000) 1277–1278
www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel
Letter to the Editor
“Measuring the temperature response of large wet coal
particles during heating” by C. A. Heidenreich and D. K.
Zhang, Fuel 78 (1999) 991–994
Dear Sir,
In the above communication, Heidenreich and Zhang
describe their measurements of the temperature of a thermo-
couple junction located at the centre of a 10 mm wet, low-
rank coal particle, while heating the particle. Using a
thermocouple with an outside diameter of 1 mm, they
concluded that thermal conduction along the thermocouple
rod from the region outside the particle caused significant
error in measurement of the particle’s centre temperature
from the thermocouple temperature. This conclusion about
their own experiments is adequately justified by their results
presented.
However, Heidenreich and Zhang then conclude that “the
technique used by previous authors to obtain temperature
data from devolatilising coal particles is unlikely to have
given a true representation of the actual particle temperature
response”. Their extrapolation of the same conclusion to
previous work demonstrates a lack of critical analysis of
the differences between their experiments and our previous
work [1].
The rate of heat transfer by conduction along the thermo-
couple may be estimated from:
DT
Q ˆ kA …
Dx
Here k may be approximated by the thermal conductivity of
the stainless steel metal sheath. This is insulated from the
thermocouple wires by mineral insulation, through which
the conduction heat transfer would be negligible by compar-
ison. A is the cross-sectional area of metal in the composite
construction of the thermocouple and may be expected to
vary with the square of thermocouple diameter, assuming
similarity in the geometrical construction of different
diameter thermocouples. Dx is the conduction path length,
which is given by the radius of the coal particle. DT is the
temperature difference along this conduction path length
and may be approximated by the temperature difference
between the fluidized bed surrounding the particle and the
temperature at the centre of the particle, neglecting the resis-
tance to heat transfer from the bed to the thermocouple
sheath where the thermocouple is outside the particle.
In our previous work referenced by Heidenreich and
0016-2361/00/$ - see front matter q 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0016-236 1(99)00264-1
Zhang [1], a 0.5 mm diameter thermocouple was used.
The smaller diameter thermocouple would decrease the
rate of heat conduction along the thermocouple to 1/4 of
that in their experiments. Values of Dx were similar at 5
and 4 mm, but comparison of DT values is more prob-
lematic. The difference between bed temperature and initial
coal particle centre temperature was approximately 5758C
for their fluidized bed experiments but approximately 8108C
for our fluidized bed experiments. For the wet coal particles
used by Heidenreich and Zhang, the large latent heat of
vaporisation necessary to evaporate 1.1 g of moisture per
gram of dry coal maintained this value of DT throughout the
extensive drying period. However, the centre of the dry coal
particle heats up during devolatilisation and the average
value of temperature difference for an 8–10 mm coal par-
ticle is estimated at 6008C [2], of the same order as in their
wet coal experiments.
The methods used to measure burning coal particle
temperatures in fluidized beds were critically analysed and
compared some 14 years ago, and the error produced by
conduction along the thermocouple was considered. The
most significant parameter affecting the magnitude of this
error is the diameter of the thermocouple, since the cross-
sectional area available for conduction increases as the
square of the thermocouple diameter. For the smaller
0.5 mm diameter thermocouple used in this earlier compar-
ative work, the magnitude of the error in heat transfer rate to
1† the centre of the particle was estimated at less than 1% [3].
Furthermore, recent detailed modelling of the external
and internal heat transfer within a devolatilising coal par-
ticle showed excellent agreement not just with the tempera-
ture response measured previously, but also with separately
measured devolatilisation times. This model incorporated
all of the important processes occurring within the particle,
including devolatilisation reaction kinetics, mass transfer of
volatiles out through the pores and particle fragmentation,
as well as the heat transfer [2].
The extrapolation of Heidenreich and Zhang’s conclusion
to earlier work is not justified. The earlier work used smaller
diameter thermocouples than the 1 mm diameter thermo-
couple of Heidenreich and Zhang, specifically to minimise
the error from conduction along the thermocouple. One
wonders why Heidenreich and Zhang did not utilise these
results from prior work and use a smaller diameter thermo-
couple themselves, rather than introducing the complexity
of a water-cooled probe?
1278 J.F. Stubington / Fuel 79 (2000) 1277–1278

References
J.F. Stubington
School of Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry,
[1] Stubington JF. Sumaryono. Fuel 1984;63:1013–9.
[2] Stubington JF, Sasongko D. Fuel 1998;77:1021–5. University of New South Wales,
[3] Stubington JF. Chem Engng Res Des 1985;63(4):241–9. Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
E-mail address: john.stubington@unsw.edu.au

Received 26 October 1999