Chemical and anatomical compositions of coal precursors
Four cores of peat from various environments in the Florida Everglades and one from the Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia have been studied with the objective of clarifying the roles of cellulose, lignin and other vascular plant polymers as input to coalification. The peat was first separated by set sieving into a coarse fraction consisting of fragments of plant organs and tissues, and a fine fraction containing an amorphous humic matrix mixed with a minority of disrupted cellular material. Microscopic examination, Curie-point pyrolysis/mass spectrometry with multivariate statistical analyses of the data, supplemented by pyrolysis/gas chromatography and PY/GC/MD, revealed substantial differences in the degree of preservation of plant tissues and in chemistry between peats derived from different types of plants. Some ..cap alpha..-cellulose is present in the upper levels of the peats, but the total polysaccharide content decreases markedly with depth, perhaps due in some cases to changes in the source vegetation, but mainly due to selective enzymatic removal of certain monomer units from polymeric lignin, thereby concentrating the structural types remaining (notably structures related to p.coumaryl alcohol). Polymeric aliphatic hydrocarbon structures are present in nearly all samples, but are more abundant at the lower depths. The chemical and morphological differences in peats are likely to be reflected in the coals that may form from them.
- Research Organization:
- Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 5651848
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
PEAT
STRUCTURAL CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
CELLULOSE
COALIFICATION
DEPTH
FLORIDA
GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY
GEORGIA
LIGNIN
MASS SPECTROSCOPY
MICROSCOPY
POLYSACCHARIDES
PYROLYSIS
SWAMPS
AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS
CARBOHYDRATES
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CHROMATOGRAPHY
DECOMPOSITION
DIMENSIONS
ECOSYSTEMS
ENERGY SOURCES
FEDERAL REGION IV
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
NORTH AMERICA
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC MATTER
SACCHARIDES
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SPECTROSCOPY
TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
USA
WETLANDS
010600* - Coal
Lignite
& Peat- Properties & Composition