The overall goal of this study is to improve understanding of sulfur in coals/chars via the use of combined advanced non-destructive and advanced destructive methods of sulfur analysis. This study combines selective oxidation, analytical pyrolysis, and sulfur X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure Spectroscopy (XANES) analysis. Samples with a wide variety of sulfur contents, (0.63% to 4.40%) have been prepared for use in this study. This includes steam gasification chars, oxidized coals and desulfurized coals as well of the original unaltered coals. Mild pyrolysis and preliminary XANES data shows that the sulfur chemistry of gasification chars is significantly different from that of the original coals. Mild pyrolysis of the samples that were oxidized with peroxyacetic acid showed that the level of simple thiophene structures observed in the pyrolysis products declines with increasing levels of oxidation. Sulfur XANES spectra of treated samples showed various effects depending on the treatment severity. The XANES spectra of less severely treated samples were similar, although not identical, to the untreated coal spectra. XANES of gasification chars indicated conversion of pyrite to pyrrhotite, removal of organic sulfide sulfur and dissolution of soluble inorganic sulfur species during gasification. Mild oxidation with peroxyacetic acid results in preferential oxidation of sulfide forms before thiophene forms but increasing oxidation severity leads to virtually all sulfur species being oxidized. A project extension of 3 months was granted so that collaboration with researchers in Belgium could be used to gather further sulfur characterization data. Further XANES analysis is to be performed during this extension period also.
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