Characteristic of Coal Deposits in the East Kolaka, Southeast Sulawesi Province

Abstract

Coal deposits in Southeast Sulawesi may not be large, one of the occurrence and deposit has been recorded in the Tawanga Village, East Kolaka Regency, Southeast Sulawesi Province. The study area is part of Southeast Arm of Sulawesi and the occurrence of coal is indicated from Meluhu Formation (TRm) which uncomformably overlying with schist of the Mekongga Complex (Pzm). In this study, field survey and proximate analysis of coal had been conducted to determine the distribution and quality of coal. Six coal samples from different area were subjected to the proximate analysis and the comparison of different properties including moisture content, volatile matter, fixed carbon, ash content and calorific values has been studied. The study is aimed to characterize of coal in the area through proximate analysis method. Field survey showed that the occurrence of coal as thin layers or lenses set in shale with thickness is vary from 5 to 20 cm. The analytical evaluation of properties showed the value of fixed carbon content 5.2 to 12.4%, the ash content 8.4 to 35.7%, the total moisture content 47.1 to 73.0% and volatile matter 7.0 to 10.7%. The analytical results suggest the existing of coal in the study area is classified as low rank calorie with the calorific value ranges between 1246.7 to 3644.6 cal/gr (adb).