Changes in organic structure and mineral phases transformation of coal during heat treatment on laboratory scale

Structural changes due to coalification and oxidation influence the coal quality, geochemically and petrologically. Understanding of the coal structures helps to predict the behaviour of coal at various processes. The objective of this paper is to study the changes in organic structure and mineral phase transformation during combustion. Different density fractions were generated and then heated at different temperatures from 200 to 1000 °C. Petrography, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were carried out on all the density fractions aimed to accomplish this objective. Here, through petrography, it was observed that the vitrinite and liptinite macerals disappear at higher temperature while porous inertinite is seen. The inertinite structure is exposed which is assumed by the presence of −OH and C–O–C stretches with the aromatic nucleus (CH) and three to four adjacent H from FTIR spectra. Moreover, it can be concluded that aliphatic groups get collapsed at high temperature. In case of inorganic matter, through XRD and FTIR, it is also revealed that with increasing temperature, clay minerals converted into elemental oxides. Hence, this study is suggesting that the structures of coal are altered by the degree of contact metamorphism.