Investigation into coals of different ranks using FTIR and Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and thermo-kinetic analyses
by Ayokunle O. Balogun; Farid Sotoudehniakarani; Armando G. McDonald
International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology (IJOGCT), Vol. 26, No. 4, 2021

Abstract: Two sub-bituminous (Onyeama mine, Nigeria and Powder River Basin, USA) and one bituminous (CNX Coal Resources, USA) coal samples were subjected to structural and chemical characterisation. The FTIR and Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and other physico-chemical techniques were deployed for this purpose. The coal ranking and aromaticity were evaluated from specific peaks on the XRD diffractogram. The coal samples were also subjected to thermo-kinetic analysis. The HHV for the coal samples ranged from 26.0 MJ/kg to 33.8 MJ/kg. Relatively, the Nigerian coal demonstrated an exceptionally high surface area, approximately 29.0 m²/g while Wyoming's and Pennsylvania's respectively recorded 0.4 m²/g and 3.9 m²/g. The ratio of band intensities, I_D/I_G was computed from Raman spectroscopy to be between 0.84 and 0.94 for the coal samples. Furthermore, the kinetics parameters deduced from TGA measurements revealed that thermal decomposition of coal is better modelled as a multi-step reaction mechanism. [Received: August 10, 2019; Accepted: January 13, 2020]

Online publication date: Thu, 08-Apr-2021

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