Explosion characteristics of coal dusts in O2/N2 ambience: A novel method to determine limiting oxygen concentration

Abstract

The explosion characteristics of anthracite and bituminous coals in O2/N2 ambience were experimentally studied via a 20-L spherical explosion chamber with various ignition energies of 2, 5 and 10 kJ. A novel method based on combustion duration time was proposed for the first time, with an emphasis on the determination of the limiting oxygen concentration (LOC). The values of LOC determined by the alternative method were almost consistent with those obtained by using the standardized overpressure method, where the LOCs were above 21.6%, 19.8%, and 13.2% for anthracite coal and 11.4%, 9.6%, and 9.0% for bituminous coal when the ignition energy is 2, 5, and 10 kJ, respectively. But the newly proposed method was found to be much less affected by the ignition energy compared with the standardized overpressure method, taking combustion duration time as an explosion criterion thus had a higher efficiency and required fewer experiments. The results also showed that as oxygen concentration decreases from 21.6% to 14.4%, the maximum explosion pressure decreases from 0.4334 MPa to 0.1034 MPa for anthracite coal and from 0.5664 MPa to 0.3981 MPa for bituminous coal, respectively. Moreover, the effect of ignition energy varied with varying volatile matter content and ignition mechanism of coal dusts. The higher the volatile content, the less sensitive it is to the ignition energy. The newly proposed method will provide a reference for the new standard development, hazard analysis, explosion prevention and suppression by involving the use of inert gases of combustible powder industries.