Thermal analysis and coal assessment: An overview with new developments

Increasingly over the last 25 years, thermal analysis (TA) applications in the ea1 rth sciences have expanded rapidly, particularly for the assessment of coal, its constituents and products. A growing number of TA methods have been involved culminating in the use of thermomagnetometry (TM), high temperature DSC (to similar to 1500 degrees C) and the wide ranging new method of proton magnetic resonance thermal analysis (PMRTA). In addition to the previously perfected and now widely utilized techniques of TA, ''simultaneous thermal analysis'' and ''variable atmosphere thermal analysis'' have proved invaluable particularly the latter where the furnace atmosphere conditions may be pre-selected, controlled and ultimately even changed repeatedly during individual TA runs. No longer is the characterization of the industrially valued properties of coal enough, varied and very useful as they have proved to be, but latterly TA is proving invaluable in the assessment of associated properties involving inorganic constituents and resultant fly or fluidized bed ash together with environmental implications for extraction, acid rain, disposal, recycling and alternate use. A range of contrasting applications is highlighted and the new PMRTA method and its applications discussed.