In case there is semi-anthracitic to anthracite coal what other options are there if one wants to generate thermal power using these?
There are mainly three classifications of coal: Anthracite, Bituminous and Lignite. Lignite has the lowest grade of coal whereas anthracite is the highest one. Power plants generally use steam coal which is a grade between anthracite and bituminous.
Coal is first milled to a fine powder, which increases the surface area and allows it to burn more quickly. In these pulverized coal combustion systems, the powdered coal is blown into the combustion chamber of a boiler where it is burnt at high temperature.
Anthracite is the highest-rank coal in terms of the carbon content and the heating value. The next to anthracite is bituminous coal and finally the lowest rank coal is lignite.
If anthracite is available and at a competitive cost, then burning this highest-rank coal in power plants would be a good option. However and to my knowledge this type of coal is more costly than bituminous and lignite.
I cover this topic in my air pollution course at Yale University.
Khalil, Y.F. (Fall 2016). Air Pollution Control (APC). Lecture notes, School of Engineering & Applied Science (SEAS), Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
Hope this helps answer your question.
Professor Yehia Khalil
Yale University
USA
Hello Kenneth.
Based on coal Gross Calorific Value (GCV), your answer is yes. But depending on some other factors such as excavation and processing costs and coal impurities/enrichments it may or may not to be economic to burn Anthracite for thermal power generation.
Please consider coal enrichment of Germanium and/or Gallium. It may lead you to an alternative use of the produced coal and make it economic to burn the Anthracite and gain trace elements from its ash.
Feel free to ask if you are interested in the topic.
Here I've put some charts/diagrams/links.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1625f/downloads/ChapterC.pdf
Thanks for the information. I was asking this on behalf of a friend since I am more into metallic ore exploration
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Phytochemistry
- Extracts