Potentially hazardous trace elements in Kentucky coals

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:214758

Blanchard, L J; Robertson, J D; Srikantapura, S ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington, KY (United States); and others

The minor and trace element content of coal is of great interest because of the potential environmental impact resulting from their release during coal combustion. Results will be presented from the investigation of how trace elements in western and eastern Kentucky bituminous coals partition (1) in advanced cleaning techniques prior to combustion and (2) in the solid waste streams during coal combustion. For the coal cleaning studies, samples of run-of-mine coal were subjected to a commercially available laboratory scale column floatation process followed by various hydrothermal leaching treatments. For the combustion studies, samples of feed coal, bottom ash, and fly ash were collected from single source western and eastern Kentucky coal fired powered plants. The trace element composition of coal and coal byproducts were obtained using particle induced x-ray emission (PIXE) and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Modes of occurrence for some of the elements were determined using x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy to augment the compositional data.

• OSTI ID: 214758
• Report Number(s): CONF-950801--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
BITUMINOUS COAL
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
COMBUSTION PRODUCTS
FLOTATION
FLY ASH
LEACHING
NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS
SPECTROSCOPY
TRACE AMOUNTS