Transformation and control of organic sulfur during pyrolysis of sludge under conditions relevant to smoldering combustion: Role of oxygen and CaO

This study focused on the effect of oxygen (0–15 %) and 5 % CaO addition on the organic-S control and transformation behavior during pyrolysis (400–600 °C) of sludge under the conditions relevant to smoldering combustion. The results show that oxygen inhibits the total emission of gaseous sulfur (decreased by 25.6–36.9 %). At low temperatures (<500 °C), oxygen enhances the oxidation of aliphatic-S, aromatic-S/thiophene-S, and sulfide-S, leading more sulfur retains in the form of sulfone-S and sulfate-S in char products, also migrates to water-soluble products (especially sulfone-S). At high temperatures (>500 °C), the formed sulfur species in char products mainly further decompose into water-soluble sulfone-S, and partially generate SO₂. After the addition of CaO during oxidative pyrolysis, the synergistic promotion effect on the sulfur fixation in char products is found, mainly due to the generation of more amount of stable sulfone-S and sulfate-S in char products. This leads to a decrease in gaseous sulfur by 12.4–14.6 % and an increase in sulfur content of char products by 31.3–202.9 %.