A comprehensive evaluation of high-sulfur petroleum coke in CO2 gasification to produce low-carbon syngas

This study investigates the potential of high-sulfur petroleum coke as a feedstock for CO₂ gasification to produce syngas, offering a novel pathway for CO₂ decarbonization and promote a circular economy in oil and gas industry. CO₂ gasification experiments were conducted under isothermal conditions using a thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA). K₂CO₃ was employed as a catalyst at varying loadings from 0–20 wt.%. The kinetic models, Shrinking Core Model (SCM) and Volume Reaction Model (VRM) were applied to describe the gasification reaction rate and the activation energy. Catalytic enhancement significantly improved the reactivity and lowering activation energy from 150.66 kJ/mol to 96.96 kJ/mol at a 5 wt.% catalyst loading. Multi objective optimization via Response Surface Methodology (RSM) demonstrated high R² values > 93 % for petroleum coke conversion, CO yield and CO₂ composition. Under optimized conditions 62 % petroleum coke conversion and 42 mol% CO yield were achieved. The novelty of this work lies in its integrated approach to petroleum coke- CO₂ gasification by combining study on catalytic enhancement, kinetic modeling and statistical optimization. This contributes to the economic viability of a decarbonization pathway aligned with circular economic principles.