Assessment of Spontaneous Combustion of Some Indian Coals Using Differential Thermal Analysis

Abstract

Self-oxidation of coal is one of the major causes for disastrous accidents in coal mines in leading coal producing countries like China, India and Australia. Hence, study of spontaneous combustion of coal is of utmost importance as it not only causes loss of life and property but also a loss of non-renewable power source, i.e., coal. In case of self-combustion of coal, it is very difficult to control the fire in the mine itself. It is important to have knowledge about the susceptibility of coal to spontaneous heating to know the degree of proneness and take steps to prevent any mishap or loss of life, coal reserve, raising concerns about economic aspects of mining etc. This B.Tech dissertation deals with assessment of susceptibility of some Indian coals to spontaneous combustion using curves obtained from differential thermal analysis of 20 coal samples collected from different coal mines of MCL and CCL, both opencast and underground. The determination of intrinsic properties as well as susceptibility of the samples were done using following experimental techniques: ? Proximate analysis ? Differential thermal analysis. It was found that only the Transition temperature determined from the DTA curve is not sufficient in determination of proneness of coal to spontaneous combustion but slopes of the Stage IIA, stage IIB and overall slope at Stage II and further studies based on the proximate analysis of coal and area under the DTG curve obtained from differential thermal analysis (DTA-TG)