Find out how the HT/HP cell has been used to investigate the impact of heating coal samples on its oxygen content.
In-situ analysis of materials at high temperature and pressure using infrared spectroscopy has become an indispensable method in modern material characterisation. Traditional methods are often not capable of obtaining satisfactory sample spectra of dark materials such as coal and graphite, where the main difficulties stem from poor light throughput, sample processing, data analysis, and baseline shifting. Coal is produced over millions of years from underground sediments subject to heat and pressure, in a process known as coalification.
The resulting coals are ranked according to their total carbon content and heating value [1]. When analysing coal samples using Specac’s tri-modal High Temperature High Pressure cell (HT/HP cell) in conjunction with FTIR, it quantitatively measures chemical composition and the extent of deterioration through absorbance change during oxidation at different temperatures. The absorbance changes to oxygenated functional groups, aliphatic C-H groups, and aromatic C-H groups are of particular interest when monitoring coal oxidation, commonly referred to as combustion. Coal’s functional groups can be used to determine its storage, autoignition, and combustion properties, and ultimately its quality and price.
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