Evidence for the associated structure of bituminous coal

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that coal swelling is not reversible and highly dependent on coal concentration in a solvent. This rules out the conventional coal structural model of a covalently cross-linked three-dimensional network. Many coal molecules may be physically associated by relatively strong intra- and intermolecular interactions. Coal swelling in selected solvents was examined for fractionated samples of two high volatile C bituminous coals to investigate the role of physical associations in coal structure. The dependence of coal concentration on swelling in tetrahydrofuran and toluene was similar for pyridine soluble and insoluble fractions. Solvent swelling of pyridine solubles was smaller than that of pyridine insolubles. Pyridine extract was mixed with iodine and further fractionated into pyridine soluble and insoluble fractions. The swelling ratio of the pyridine solubles was much smaller than that of the pyridine insolubles. The difference between swelling with toluene and with tetrahydrofuran was larger for pyridine insolubles than for pyridine solubles. All these results indicate that significant portions of coal molecules are not a three-dimensional network, but are physically associated.