Study of the coal secondary spontaneous combustion behavior under different pre-heating oxygen concentrations

Abstract

Spontaneous combustion of oxidized coal was one of the serious hazards during coal mining and utilization. However, spontaneous combustibility of oxidized coal affected by the first oxidation of coal was still unclear. In this paper, the influence of pre-heating with different oxygen concentrations on coal secondary spontaneous combustion behaviors was studied. Temperature-programmed heating experiments were carried out to prepare pre-heated coal samples by heating at the preset temperature of 80 °C in mixture atmosphere of N2 and O2 with different oxygen proportions of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%. Pre-heated and raw coals were heated programmatically in an air atmosphere of 120 mL min−1 with a heating rate of 0.33 °C min−1. The gaseous compounds of O2, CO and CO2 were analyzed to identify spontaneous combustion behaviors of pre-heated and raw coals. The results showed that pre-heating at 80 °C promoted oxygen physisorption at low temperatures and lowered oxidability at high temperatures in the coal secondary oxidation process. Pre-heating at 80 °C with higher oxygen content reduced oxidability and exothermicity of coal secondary spontaneous combustion, but had no obvious effect on oxygen physisorption of coal low-temperature oxidation.