Composition and volume of gas released by crushing coal from West Virginia, Kentucky and Alabama

✍ Scribed by Charles E. Melton; A.A. Giardini

• Book ID: 103090891
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1975
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 361 KB
• Volume: 54
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-2361
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-2361(75)90004-6

✦ Synopsis

Analyses of the composition and volume of gaseous inclusions in samples of coal from

West Virginia, Alabama and Kentucky have been made at room temperature by mass spectrometric techniques. This was done by crushing the coal in the high-vacuum inlet system of a research mass spectrometer.

The gases observed were composed of C, S, H, 0, N, He and Ar atoms. Water was the most abundant gas; others were hydrogen, helium, methane, ammonia, methanol, ethanol, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, ethane, oxygen, hydrogen sulphide, argon and carbon dioxide. Gas compositions were found to be a function of the source of the coal. For example, over 6% of the gas from Alabama coal was methane, but West Virginia coal contained only 0.1% methane. The volume of gas also was a function of the coal source. Coal from Kentucky contained 2.3 cm3 g-' (STP), whereas coal from West Virginia contained 0.4 cm3 g-l.