Abstract
The propensity of spontaneous combustion of coals can be evaluated qualitatively in laboratories by a wide variety of methods with different techniques. Three widely used methods, R70, TGA, and USBM, have been introduced to assess the propensity for coal’s spontaneous combustion. Methodology, experimental instruments, testing procedures, and testing results of the experiments performed with TGA, USBM method, and R70 adiabatic oxidation method are demonstrated and discussed specifically in this chapter. Coal samples retarded with and without inhibitors are tested with TGA for calculating the activation energy in the oxidation stage for inhibitor selection. FTIR experiments have conducted to investigate the effect of coal molecular structure on the self-heating behavior of coal. The trends and features of FTIR spectra for high and low propensity coals are basically similar. Variations only appear in adsorption peak height and intensity, indicating that the number of functional groups and the chemical structure of coals are quite different from one to another. For one type of coal, the abundance of carboxyl, hydroxyl, and carbonyl groups contributes to its high reactivity, instability, and susceptibility to oxidation and spontaneous combustion.
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Wang, X. (2020). Laboratory Experiment for Evaluating Characteristics of Spontaneous Combustion. In: Spontaneous Combustion of Coal. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33691-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33691-2_3
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