Quantitative analysis of pyrite in coal

✍ Scribed by Sidney S. Pollack

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1971
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 126 KB
• Volume: 50
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-2361
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-2361(71)90032-9

✦ Synopsis

THE PURPOSE of this communication is to suggest a possible third method for the determination of pyrite in coal in addition to the British Standard methodr-s and the direct (or non-simultaneous) method 4-e. Burns7 found the former procedure to be unsatisfactory for the analysis of pyrite in Australian coals.

X-ray diffractionspg is a common technique for quantitative analysis of crystalline materials although it is usually used for measuring percentages greater than 5 to 10%. However, the low mass absorption coefficient of carbon permits the detection by x-ray diffraction of very small amounts of crystalline inorganic compounds admixed with carbon. Although I have no need for the determination of pyrite in coal, I prepared some mixtures to determine the approximate minimum detectable percentage of pyrite in activated carbon. Diffractometer traces of mixtures containing 1% and 0.4 % (less than 10 pm) pyrite in activated carbon are shown in Figure 1. If there were no impurities in coal with diffraction lines which superimposed on the strongest pyrite lines, possibly as little as 0.2% pyrite could be determined quantitatively.