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Title: Spontaneous combustion prediction of coal by C80 and ARC techniques

Journal Article · · Energy and Fuels
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/ef900372w· OSTI ID:21261678
; ;  [1]
  1. University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China). State Key Laboratory of Fire Science

Many coal fires were caused by spontaneous combustion in coal mines or coal storehouses, which resulted in a great loss and energy wastage. To identify and evaluate the hazardous degree of coal stockpile, a C80 microcalorimeter and accelerating rate calorimeter (ARC) were employed in this work. The coal samples undergo an exothermal process start at 80 {sup o}C with heat generation of -75.1 J g{sup -1} (mean value) detected by C80 experiment. The activation energies of the first exothermal process were calculated for the three experiments, and the mean value is 80.76 kJ mol{sup -1}, which is lower than that of obtained from the ARC result, 127.0 kJ mol{sup -1}. For a 300 tons coal stockpile, the self-heating oxidation temperatures (SHOT) were calculated as 164, 60, 90, and 68{sup o}C based on the ARC experiment and three C80 experiments, respectively. Further research on the mass effect on SHOT shows that if the coal mass is less than 12 tons, the danger of thermal spontaneous combustion is less. However, if the mass amount is more than 12000 tons, the danger of thermal spontaneous combustion is difficult to avoid even at ambient temperature if no special measures are taken. 38 refs., 9 figs.

OSTI ID:
21261678
Journal Information:
Energy and Fuels, Vol. 23, Issue 10; ISSN 0887-0624
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English