Influence of tectonic stress on coalification: Stress degradation mechanism and stress polycondensation mechanism

Abstract

The function of pressure for coalification is a long-term controversial issue, and the main cause is that the strata pressure and the tectonic stress were confused, which are two different actions of “pressure”. The former benefits the physical coalification but retards the chemical coalification, whereas the latter may not only affect the physical structure of coal but also promote its chemical composition changes. In accordance with the organic molecule evolution of coal, there are two kinds of basic mechanisms of the influence of the tectonic stress on the chemical coalification: the tectonic stress degradation and the tectonic stress polycondensation. The stress degradation mechanism is a process of that, when the tectonic stress acted on the large molecule of coal in the form of mechanical force or kinetic energy, some chemical bonds of low decomposed energy, such as aliphatic side-chain and oxygenic functional groups, were broken up and then were degraded into free radicals of less molecular weight, and finally escaped from coal in the form of liquid organic matter (hydrocarbon). The stress polycondensation is considered that, under the control of the anisotropic tectonic stress, the condensed aromatic nucleus trend to be parallel arranged and to be enhanced through rotating or displacing of aromatic rings, the basic structural unit of coal (BSU) increases by directional development and preferential stack. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transformation infrared microspectroscopy (FTIR), and rock pyrolysis analysis (Rock-eval) were employed to study the deformed coal series and the non-deformed coal series. The results showed that, compared with the non-deformed coal, the deformed coal exhibits particular characteristics: weaker aliphatic absorbance peak and stronger aromatic absorbance peak, lower pyrolysed hydrocarbon yield, and more increscent BSU. The concepts of stress degradation mechanism and stress polycondensation mechanism presented here would not deny the dominant function of the temperature in coalification, but emphasize the “catalysis” of the tectonic stress in coalification.