Thermal Analysis of Some SCCL Coal

The auto oxidation of coal ultimately leads to spontaneous combustion which is the major root cause for the disastrous of coal mine. It has been a major problem in the leading producing coal countries like Australia, India and China. Therefore the assessment for this combustion is very much necessary. It depends upon different characteristics and properties of coal. Once if the combustion of coal has been occurred, it is very difficult to control which also disturbs the environment of the surroundings of the mine. The spontaneous heating susceptibility of different coals varies over a wide range and it is important to assess their degree of proneness for taking preventive measures against the occurrence of fires to avoid loss of lives and property, sterilization of coal reserves and environmental pollution and raise concerns about safety and economic aspects of mining etc The B.Tech.dissertation deals with the thermal analysis of various parameters of coal with the spontaneous heating tendency of coal. Nine insitu coal samples for the project were collected from Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. (SCCL), both from opencast as well as underground workings. The project deals with determination of spontaneous heating susceptibility of coal samples by experimental techniques. The intrinsic properties as well as susceptibility indices of the coal samples were determined by following experimental techniques: Proximate analysis Calorific value Flammability temperature Wet oxidation potential Differential thermal analysis (DTA-TG) It was interpreted from the analysis that DTA – TG is the best method to assess the spontaneous heating tendency of coal in comparison to Flammability temperature and Wet oxidation potential. It was also observed that the Transition temperature obtained from the DTA – TG plot cannot be taken as a sole parameter to assess the spontaneous heating of coal, rather Stage IIB and Stage II slopes give a better idea. It was also found that Flammability temperature method does not provide an accurate measure of spontaneous heating tendency of coal. It was found that Wet oxidation potential gave a fair enough approximation for spontaneous heating tendency for high moisture coals. However it can be taken as a parameter for spontaneous heating susceptibility as it requires less time for conduction than DTA –TG