Phase mineralogy studies of solid waste products from coal burning at some Bulgarian thermoelectric power plants

Abstract

A combination of methods, including separation, crystallo-optical techniques, SEM, TEM, X-ray, etc., were used to characterize the phase mineralogy, chemical composition, microstructure and some genetic phase pecularities in solid waste products from coal burning. Fly ashes, bottom ashes and lagooned ashes from the burning of Bobov Dol and East Maritza coal at Bobov Dol and East Maritza thermoelectric power plants, respectively, were studied. These wastes comprise inorganic and organic constituents. The inorganic part consists mainly of non-crystalline (amorphous) components (glass spheres, spheroids and angular particles) and lesser amounts of crystalline components represented by various major (quartz, magnetite, hematite, mullite, feldspar, gypsum, anhydrite, kaolinite-metakaolinite), minor (mica, free CaO, calcite, olivine) and accessory (rutile, svanbergite, iron carbide, chloritoid, zincite, pyrolusite, cuprite, zircon, etc.) mineral phases. The organic constituent consists of unburnt coal components represented by slightly changed, semicoked and coked coal particles. The genesis of the solid phases could be: primary, contained in coal and having undergone no phase transitions (quartz, kaolinite, mica, feldspar, volcanic glass, coal particles); secondary, formed during burning (magnetite, hematite, metakaolinite, mullite, anhydrite, free CaO, glass, semicoke, coke); or tertiary, formed during the transport and storage of fly ashes and bottom ashes (gypsum, calcite, hematite, limonite).