Spontaneous combustion liability between coal seams: A thermogravimetric study

The spontaneous combustion liability of coal can be determined by using different experimental techniques.These techniques are well-known in their application,but no certain test method has become a standard to prove the reliability of all of them.A general characterisation which included proximate and ultimate analyses,petrographic properties and spontaneous combustion tests(thermogravimetric analysis(TGA)and the Wits-Ehac tests)were conducted on fourteen coal and four coal-shale samples.The spontaneous combustion liability of these samples collected between coal seams(above and below)were predicted using the TGA and the Wits-Ehac tests.Six different heating rates(3,6,9,15,20 and 25
C/min)were selected based on the deviation coefficient to obtain different derivative slopes and a liability index termed the TGspc index.This study found that coal and coal-shale undergo spontaneous combustion between coal seams when exposed to oxygen in the air.Their intrinsic properties and proneness towards spontaneous combustion differ considerably from one seam to the other.The Wits-Ehac test results agreed with the TGspc results to a certain extent and revealed the incidents of spontaneous combustion in the coal mines.

Microreactor for the Catalytic Partial Oxidation of Methane

Fixed-bed reactors for the partial oxidation of methane to produce synthetic gas still pose hotspot problems. An alternative reactor, which is known as the shell-and-tube-typed microreactor, has been developed to resolve these problems. The microreactor consists of a 1 cm outside-diameter, 0.8 cm insidediameter and 11 cm length tube, and a 1.8 cm inside-diameter shell. The tube is made of dense alumina and the shell is made of quartz. Two different methods dip and spray coating were performed to line the tube side with the LaNixOy catalyst. Combustion and reforming reactions take place simultaneously in this reactor. Methane is oxidized in the tube side to produce flue gases （CO2 and H2O） which flow counter-currently and react with the remaining methane in the shell side to yield synthesis gas. The methane conversion using the higher-loading catalyst spray-coated tube reaches 97% at 700 ℃, whereas that using the lower-loading catalyst dip-coated tube reaches only 7.78% because of poor adhesion between the catalyst film and the alumina support. The turnover frequencies （TOFs） using the catalyst spray-and dip-coated tubes are 5.75×10^-5 and 2.24×10^-5 mol/gcat· s, respectively. The catalyst spray-coated at 900 ℃ provides better performance than that at 1250 ℃ because sintering reduces the surface-area. The hydrogen to carbon monoxide ratio produced by the spray-coated catalyst is greater than the stoichiometric ratio, which is caused by carbon deposition through methane cracking or the Boudouard reaction.

Experimental evaluation of activated carbon derived from South Africa discard coal for natural gas storage

Lacking in literature is the use of discard coal to produce activated carbon and in its subsequent use in the storage of natural gas. In this study, the characterization and gas storage evaluation of a largely porous activated carbon with large surface area synthesized from discard coal were investigated. Discard coals are waste material generated from coal beneficiation process. In developing the activated carbon, chemical activation route with the use of KOH reagent was applied. The effects of KOH/discard coal weight ratio (1:1, 2.5:1, 4:1), temperature (400-800 ℃) and particle size (0.15-0.25 mm, 0.25-0.5 mm, 0.5-1 mm) on the adsorptive properties of the activated carbon were methodically evaluated and optimized using response surface methodology. The synthesized activated carbon was characterized using BET, SEM/EDS, and XRD. The results showed that for each activation process, the surface area and pore volume of the resulting activated carbon increased with increased temperature and KOH/discard coal weight ratio. The maximum surface area of 1826.41 m2/g, pore volume of 1.252 cm^3/g and pore size of 2.77 nm were obtained at carbonization temperature of 800 ℃ and KOH/discard coal weight ratio of 4:1. Methane and nitrogen adsorption data at high pressure were fitted to Toth isotherm model with a predictive accuracy of about 99%. Adsorption parameters using the Toth model provides useful information in the design of adsorbed natural gas storage system. According to the requirements of adsorbent desired for natural gas storage, it could be stated that the synthesized activated carbon could well be applied for natural gas storage.

Predictions of elemental composition of coal and biomass from their proximate analyses using ANFIS, ANN and MLR

The elemental composition of coal and biomass provides significant parameters used in the design of almost all energy conversion systems and projects.The laboratory tests to determine the elemental composition of coal and biomass is time-consuming and costly.However,limited research has suggested that there is a correlation between parameters obtained from elemental and proximate analyses of these materials.In this study,some predictive models of the elemental composition of coal and biomass using soft computing and regression analyses have been developed.Thirty-one samples including parameters of elemental and proximate analyses were used during the analyses to develop multiple prediction models.Dependent variables for multiple prediction models were selected as carbon,hydrogen,and oxygen.Using volatile matter,fixed carbon,moisture and ash contents as independent variables,three different prediction models were developed for each dependent parameter using ANFIS,ANN,and MLR.In addition,a routine for selecting the best predictive model was suggested in the study.The reliability of the established models was tested by using various prediction performance indices and the models were found to be satisfactory.Therefore,the developed models can be used to determine the elemental composition of coal and biomass for practical purposes.

Addressing the Challenge of Interpreting Microclimatic Weather Data Collected from Urban Sites

This paper presents some installation and data analysis issues from an ongoing urban air temperature and humidity measurement campaign in Hangzhou and Ningbo, China. The location of the measurement sites, the positioning of the sensors and the harsh conditions in an urban environment can result in missing values and observations that are unrepresentative of the local urban microclimate. Missing data and erroneous values in micro-scale weather time series can produce bias in the data analysis, false correlations and wrong conclusions when deriving the specific local weather patterns. A methodology is presented for the identification of values that could be false and for determining whether these are “noise”. Seven statistical methods were evaluated in their performance for replacing missing and erroneous values in urban weather time series. The two methods that proposed replacement with the mean values from sensors in locations with a Sky View Factor similar to that of the target sensor and the sensors closest to the target’s location performed well for all Day-Night and Cold-Warm days scenarios. However, during night time in warm weather the replacement with the mean values for air temperature of the nearest locations outperformed all other methods. The results give some initial evidence of the distinctive urban microclimate development in time and space under different regional weather forcings.