CHEMICAL FUNCTIONALITIES OF HIGH AND LOW SULPHUR COALS: A CASE STUDY USING MICRO ATTENUATED TOTAL REFLECTANCE-FOURIER TRANSFORM INFRARED (ATR-FTIR) SPECTROMETRY TECHNIQUES

摘要

The macerals in coals with varying organic sulphur contents from the Early Permian Greta Coal Measures at three locations in and around the Sydney Basin, New South Wales, have been studied in polished section using light-element electron microprobe analysis and micro attenuated total reflectance - Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectrometry techniques. The coals are from the following locations: (1) the Greta seam at Southland Colliery, on the Lochinvar Anticline around 10 km west of Cessnock; (2) the Puxtrees seam at Drayton Colliery, on the Muswellbrook Anticline, ; and (3) the Tangorin and Stanhope seams of the Cranky Corner Basin, an outlier basin located immediately north of the Sydney Basin area. They include coals with up to 6% organic sulphur in the vitrinite components and coals having vitrinites with low (＜ 1%) organic sulphur contents. Electron microprobe analysis of individual macerals (Ward et al., 2006) reveals that the vitrinites in both the Cranky Corner Basin and Puxtrees seam samples have similar carbon contents (～ 78% C in telocollinite), suggesting that they are of equivalent rank. Due to marine influence associated with the paleo-depositional environment, however, the Cranky Corner coals have anomalously low vitrinite reflectance (down to 0.45%) compared to the Puxtrees seam materials (around 0.7%). They also have very high organic S contents (3 to 6.5%) and lower O contents (～ 10%) than the equivalent Puxtrees seam macerals (0.7% S and 15.6% O).