Application of organic petrology and geochemistry to coal waste studies

Comparative mineralogical study of thermally-altered coal-dump waste, natural rocks and the products of laboratory heating experiments

“…Research already performed on USCB material includes studies of the heating itself (e.g., Wagner, 1980), transformations of organic matter (Misz-Kennan and Fabiańska, 2011) and mineralogy (Ciesielczuk, 2008;Ciesielczuk et al, 2010;Kruszewski, 2006Kruszewski, , 2009Kruszewski, , 2013Kruszewski, 2009, 2010) and gas-phase chemistry (Fabiańska et al, 2013). In contrast, data on the mineralogy of LSCB dumps is limited (Fabiańska et al, 2013;Kruszewski et al, 2012;Wielogórski et al, 1975).…”

The Mechanisms of Endogenous Fires Occurring in Extractive Waste Dumping Facilities

“…Many papers present methods used for the thermal monitoring of extractive waste dumping sites [16] and facilities [17,18], the results of monitoring research [19][20][21] and practical experience concerning the handling of fire phenomena [11,12,15,22,23]. Another significant area of research is determining the mechanisms responsible for the occurrence of 2 of 14 fires in coal spoil piles [24][25][26], including the initiation process of the phenomenon, its development and the course of the whole process [27,28], as well as the factors contributing to the self-ignition of waste [14,19,29]. Since the second half of the 20th century, there have been research studies focusing on the development of effective methodology for forecasting and assessing fire hazards occurring in the areas of extractive waste sites.…”

“…The research concerns both the development of expert methods consisting in assessing the fire hazard on the basis of a number of site-specific criteria and the character of the deposited waste [29][30][31]. The studies also discuss laboratory methods by means of which the propensity to self-ignition is assessed based on tests and observations of extractive waste in installations or research stands under laboratory conditions [14,27,29,32]. Some of the laboratory methods are dedicated to assessing the self-ignition of bituminous coals and are then adopted to the assessment of extractive waste self-ignition without any modifications.…”

“…There is another group of methods which are focused on mineral and petrographic analysis, where the assessment is carried out by means of the analysis and observation of minerals that are components of the extractive waste and the coal macerals contained in the minerals; the assessment of the tendency to self-ignition can also be made using the derivatographic method [27,32]. The noxiousness of burning coal spoil piles and the ever-growing environmental awareness have contributed to the development of technologies dedicated to decreasing or eliminating fire hazards connected with the deposition of extractive waste on the ground surface.…”

ECOAL Project—Delivering Solutions for Integrated Monitoring of Coal-Related Fires Supported on Optical Fiber Sensing Technology

“…These occurrences are also an environmental concern and have recently been studied in Europe [17][18][19][20][21], specifically on the Iberian peninsula [8,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. In this context, coal fires are related to spontaneous combustion or ignition caused by extrinsic factors of coal and coal-rich materials that lead to the self-combustion process over variable periods of time (frequently over decades).…”