Origin of coal. Hard coal: formation of deposits

The periods of accumulation and active use of fossil coal are incommensurable with the period of human existence. The age of coal deposits accumulated over millions of years is tens and hundreds of millions of years; active use of coal began less than 270 years ago. At the current rate of coal mining, the explored reserves of coal will be enough for about 500 years.

Combustible stone - fossil coal - was known in antiquity. Its primitive mining was carried out in ancient China and ancient Greece where it was used as a fuel. Ancient Roman villas were heated by coal deposits in Greece and Italy. Although the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle compared some of the properties of charcoal and fossil coal, for many centuries there was an opinion about the mineral origin of fossil coals. So, in 315 BC, Aristotle's student Theophrastus called them "burning stones" - "anthrax" (hence the name "anthracite"). In the 16th century AD, the physician and alchemist Paracelsus considered natural coals as “stones altered by the action of volcanic fire,” and the naturalist Agricola (Fig. 7.1) said that coal is solidified oil.

Russian scientist M.V. Lomonosov, in his treatise On the Layers of the Earth (1763), put forward a hypothesis about the origin of fossil coal from peat, and peat from accumulations of plant remains at the bottom of swamps. The organic origin of fossil coals was finally proved only in the 19th century through microscopic studies, which found charred or partially decomposed remains of plant tissues, resin grains, seeds, and spores in the structure of coal matter.

There are coal deposits on all continents of the Earth and most of the islands of the World Ocean. The discovery of each of them has its own history.

There is various information about the extraction and use of coal in Ukraine. So, during geological research, dumps of ancient coal mining in the area of ​​​​the city of Bakhmut (now the city of Artemovsk) were discovered, indicating that already in the 9th–10th centuries. the local population mined and used it as fuel in the production of various household items.

V Western Europe coal came into use later. Until the 17th century, only charcoal was used for metal smelting. The rapid development of metallurgy in

Georg Agricola (1494–1555), real name Bauer, was a German scientist in the field of geology, mining and metallurgy, a naturalist. In 1527–1530 he worked in St. Joachimsthal (Bohemia) as a doctor and pharmacist. Here he got acquainted with mining assay analysis and smelting techniques, acquired extensive knowledge in mineralogy, geology, mining and metallurgy. In 1530, G. Agricola published his first written Latin Bermannus book. Mining Talk, which dealt primarily with silver mining and "experience with minerals." Agricola's next scientific work deals mainly with the development of ore deposits, metal smelting, salt mining and mining machines. This monograph, consisting of 12 books, appeared in 1556, a few months after his death, under the title On Mining and Metallurgy (De re metallica, libri XII). For more than two hundred years, this work on mining, richly illustrated with beautiful drawings (see, for example, Fig. 7.2) - almost three hundred woodcuts - was the main textbook for miners and metallurgists.

The 18th century required a large amount of fuel, so the stock of industrial wood was sharply reduced. Fossil coal could be a substitute for charcoal.

By this time, intensive searches for fossil coal deposits in various countries. The history of the beginning of coal consumption in Veli is interesting.

The beginning of the development of Donbass is associated with the foresight of Peter I, who drew attention to samples of local coal during the Azov campaign in 1696. According to legend, Peter I said: “This mineral, if not for us, then for our descendants, will be very useful.” In 1722, he signed a decree on the establishment of the Donetsk coal basin. Interestingly, by the end of the 17th century, coal was practically not used in European industry, and no more than 150 people were employed in the entire English coal mining, so Peter's decision was a brilliant guess.

UK. As one of the English newspapers wrote a hundred years ago: “It was at the beginning of the XIV century. London brewers, blacksmiths and locksmiths, seeing the ever-increasing high cost of firewood, tried to burn coal instead, which turned out to be both very convenient and very profitable. But the superstitious townspeople considered the burning of coal to be an unholy act. A special petition was submitted to the king, and the use of coal was prohibited by law. However, due to the high cost of firewood, many secretly continued to break the law, so the townspeople demanded draconian measures. It is known that one offender in London was executed, but it is said that there were many such cases. Then the strict laws were repealed, but for a long time there was a strong prejudice against coal because of the "stink of this type of fuel."

Ladies especially revolted against coal; many London ladies refused to enter houses that were not heated by wood, and would not touch a single dish if it was cooked on coal considering such foods unclean.

And now coal is the strength and wealth of England, the indispensable condition of the present civilization itself.

Times have changed and the attitude of the British towards coal has changed, as a result of which the following tradition has appeared. The British (especially the Scots) on New Year's Eve, the first to cross the threshold of the house should be a tall black-haired man with silver coin and a piece of coal. And then in the house in the new year there will never be a shortage of food, it will always be warm and cozy.

In Russia, the industrial use of coal instead of wood arose at the beginning of the 18th century. The first reliable information about the search and exploration of fossil coals in Russia also dates back to the beginning of the 18th century.

Under Peter I, who paid great attention to the development of mining, special expeditions were organized to various regions of the country.

In the Donetsk basin, coal deposits were discovered in 1721 in the areas of Bakhmut, Lisichansk, Shakhty.

There is a dispute between historians about the discoverers of coal in the Donbass. For a long time it was believed that the discoverer of coal in the Donets Basin is Grigory Kapustin (Fig. 7.3), who in 1721 discovered deposits in the area of ​​the Don, Kurdyuchey and Osered rivers.

However, as evidenced by archival materials, in the same 1721 Bakhmut salt-workers Nikita Vekreisky and Semyon Chirkov found coal in the Skelevataya gully, 25 km from Bakhmut, and began to use it in forges. And in Lisichya Balka, where later in 1796 the first mine in the Donbass came into operation, he discovered a coal deposit in December 1722. Nikolai Avramov, one of the leaders of the Black Sea mining expedition.

Grigory Grigorievich Kapustin - clerk of the village of Danilovsky, the former Kostroma district. After examining the regions of the Upper and Middle Don, Kapustin then explored coal in the coastal strip of the Seversky Donets (Fig. 7.4). Local settlers, mostly from Zaporozhye Cossacks, told him that they had been using combustible stone in the forges for a long time, and showed him their coal mines. In early January 1722, Grigory Kapustin reported on the results of the expedition:

“The clerk Grigory Kapustin informs you of ore deeds that I have taken out coal from the Donetsk land near the Kundryuchya River. Please accept and test it in the laboratory.

The Berg Collegium, on whose instructions the expedition was carried out and which consisted mainly of foreigners, did not classify Kapustin's discovery as one of industrial importance.

But in January 1724, Peter the Great received a denunciation from the Bakhmut steward Nikita Vepreisky and captain Semyon Chirkov, in which they reported that on the coal mined in the vicinity of Lisya Balka, Bakhmut artisans boil salt and make various blacksmith forgings, and residents of nearby settlements use combustible stone for heating dwellings.

It was then that, in pursuit of Grigory Kapustin, the Berg Collegium sent an urgent dispatch in which the next route of the expedition was changed and instructed to visit the banks of the Seversky Donets and Upper Belenkaya rivers.

Experiencing shortages in food and money, the expedition of Grigory Kapustin in the fall of 1724, overcoming all difficulties, studied near the Belenkaya River, in Lisya Balka, an unprecedented layer of coal 1.14 meters high. It was "eureka" in coal mining that surprised foreign mining engineers.

Grigory Kapustin's report about the deposits of coal he found in the Donbass in the conditions of aristocratic Russia did not immediately become the basis for the industrial development of rich deposits in the south of the country, although he persistently fought for the fastest use of his discoveries.

Only seventy years later, the first coal mine in the Donbass was laid in Lisya Balka. Here, in Lisichansk, the industrial development of coal began for the first time.

Expeditions sent to other regions of Russia also made a number of discoveries. In 1721, a coal deposit was discovered on the Tom River (Kuzbass). The same year includes the discovery of the Moscow Basin, as well as deposits in the area of ​​the city of Kizel in the Urals. In 1722–1723 The St. Petersburg Berg Collegium received many reports about coal seams in the areas of the Don and Dnieper rivers.

The development of the metallurgical industry in many countries had a huge impact on the intensive search for and development of coal deposits. In particular, the development of the Donets Basin is closely connected with the construction of the Lugansk iron foundry processing local ores, which was put into operation in 1799. Simultaneously with the start of the construction of the plant, coal mines were laid, primarily near the village of Beloye, and then at a richer deposit on the right bank Seversky Donets in Lisichya Balka (Lysichansk). The Lisichansky mine remained the main coal mining enterprise in the Donbass until the end of the 60s of the XIX century, i.e. before the start of construction of larger mines in its central regions.

The decree of Peter I of December 7, 1722 has been preserved: “To dig coal and ores, which the clerk Kapustin announced, send a messenger from the Berg Collegium and in those places of that coal and ores to dig three or more fathoms deep and, having accumulated a pood up to five, bring it to the Bergcollegium and try it out.

Similarly, coal deposits began to be developed in other coal-producing countries.

Ancient naturalists considered the main hallmark fossil coals ability to burn. Therefore, the chronology of the discovery of coal by mankind is connected with the chronology of the development of technological processes in which coal is used primarily as a fuel. Probably, the ancient Chinese were the first to use coal as a fuel: according to some information, in one of the largest coal regions of China, Fongshui, it was used to smelt copper 3,000 years ago. Chinese treatises of the 2nd century BC are known, which mention the use of coal in the production of porcelain, for evaporating salt solutions, etc. According to the famous traveler Marco Polo, who visited China in 1310, coal was widely used in industry and for heating. Approximately around the same time there are references to the use of coal as a fuel in England and Germany and the laying of the first coal mines in England.

However, even at the end of the 17th century, the size of coal production and use in Europe was negligible. So, in the coal-mining region of England (Bristol), only 123 people worked at 70 mines. This was due to the fact that, while significantly superior to firewood in terms of calorific value and developed temperature, coal is still inferior to them in a number of technological characteristics - ignition temperature, sulfur content - and, unlike dry firewood, smokes. Therefore, while there were enough forests in Europe, and the population density and the level of industrial development were low, they preferred to get by with firewood for heating, wood tar and tar as a binder, and charcoal as a fuel and reducing agent for ores in metallurgy.

It is believed that the beginning of the use of coal in the chemical and technological direction was laid by the work of the chemist I. Becher, who in 1681 received a patent for "a new method for making coke and tar from peat and coal, which had never been discovered or applied by anyone before." It was the heat treatment of coal without access to air with the distillation of volatiles and sulfur, turning it into coke. I. Becher describes his invention as follows: “There is peat in Holland, coal in England, but both of them are almost never used for burning in blast furnaces and for smelting. I found a way to turn both of them into a good fuel, which not only does not smoke or stink, but also gives the same strong fire necessary for melting as charcoal ... And it is worthy of attention: how the Swedes get their pitch from a pine tree, so I got my pitch in England from coal, which is the same as Swedish in quality, and even with some coals it is higher than it. I made samples both on wood and on ropes, and the resin proved to be quite good ... ”In the same 17th century, the Englishman D. Dodley conducted experimental blast-furnace smelting on fossil coal, but he kept the details of the process a secret and took it with him to grave.

The discoveries of I. Becher and D. Dodley did not become widespread during their lifetime. Meanwhile, to provide blast furnaces and forges with charcoal, forests were rapaciously exterminated. In order to preserve them, the English Parliament in 1558-1584. issued a number of decrees restricting the growth and placement of metallurgical enterprises. Nevertheless, the demand for metal increased rapidly, and by the beginning of the 17th century, many forests in Europe had been completely destroyed. In industrially more developed countries- England, Germany, Holland, France - firewood and charcoal became literally worth their weight in gold, which sharply slowed down the development of industry and forced them to intensively look for alternative fuels.

The first reliable information about the organized prospecting and exploration of minerals, in particular coal, in Russia dates back to the reign of Peter I.

By decree of Peter I in 1719, the Berg Collegium (Berg Privilege) was organized, which was entrusted with the management of the country's mining industry and the exploration of minerals. The Berg Collegium attracted the population "both on their own and on foreign lands to look for, dig, melt, boil and clean all kinds of metals ... and all kinds of ores of the earth and stones."

First statistics on coal mining for 1796–1801 testify that during these years 2.4 thousand tons were mined, in 1810 - 2.5 and in 1820 - 4.1 thousand tons of coal.

Back in 1757, M.V. Lomonosov, in his "Word on the Birth of Metals", put forward a hypothesis about the vegetable origin of coal and was the first to put forward the idea that coal was formed from peat. This idea later formed the basis of the now generally accepted "theory of transformations." The first work on the study of coal under a microscope belongs to the mining engineer-captain Ivanitsky (1842), who wrote: “The vegetable origin of coal is undoubtedly and almost can be considered proven. It is based on the gradual transition from peat and brown coal to the most crystalline species coal and anthracite.

The beginning of the industrial revolution in Europe is quite rightly associated with the "discovery" of fossil coal for use in industry, which occurred 50-80 years after the discoveries of I. Becher. In 1735 in England, A. Derby uses coal, or rather, coke, obtained by burning coal in the so-called "heaps", where about a third of the coal was burned and two-thirds turned into coke, as a fuel and a reducing agent for smelting metal in blast furnaces. ovens. In 1763, J. Watt in England, and 20 years after that, I. Polzunov in Russia, invented a steam engine, where fossil coal is used as fuel. In the same year 1763, the French metallurgists Zhara in Lüttich (Belgium) and Janzen in the Saarland built the first coke batteries with the production of metallurgical coke and the capture of coking tar. Finally, in 1792, the Englishman W. Murdoch not only repeated the 180-year-old experiments of the Dutch naturalist Ya.B. van Galmont to obtain combustible gas from coal, but also equipped his house in Redruth with gas lighting. Thus, the main directions for the use of fossil coal were determined: fuel (for steam boilers and domestic needs); fuel and reducing agent (coke for metal smelting); raw materials for obtaining liquid and gaseous products, in turn used as fuel or chemical raw materials.

The leading role in the introduction of gas lighting in cities was played at the beginning of the 19th century by the Englishman F.-A. Vanzor. Perhaps it was easier for him to solve technical issues than to overcome the prejudices of society. Thus, the well-known English writer W. Scott wrote about Vanzor: “One madman proposes to light up London – what do you think? Imagine - smoke ... ”Newspapers were full of statements that artificial lighting violated divine laws, according to which there should be darkness at night; that illuminated streets would contribute to the growth of drunkenness, depravity of the population and colds (meaning nightly revelers); that under the new lighting horses will be frightened and thieves become insolent ... Despite this, in 1812 the English Parliament approved the establishment of the world's first "London and Westminster Company for gas lighting and coke production", in 1816 the first gas plant in the USA was opened , in 1820 - in France, in 1835 - in Russia. In 1885, about 2.5 billion m 3 of lighting gas were consumed in England and not much less than coal gas as domestic cooking fuel.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the development of the production of coke for metallurgy, on the one hand, and lighting gas, on the other, further increased the amount of coal tar obtained and intensified research into the possibilities of its use. In 1815, the English chemist Akkum began to obtain light oils from the resin - essences that were used as solvents and substitutes for wood turpentine. In 1822 in England the first tar distillery began to produce light coal tar - naphtha - for the impregnation of waterproof fabrics and raincoats. In 1825, the great English physicist and chemist M. Faraday isolated benzene from coal processing products, which laid the foundation for the chemistry of aromatic compounds. In 1842, the Russian chemist N.N. Zinin discovered methods for the industrial production of coal aniline, an important intermediate in the synthesis of artificial dyes. This discovery was practically used only in 1856, when the English student V. Perkin, processing aniline, obtained the first artificial organic dye - movein - and quickly organized the production of a number of synthetic dyes in his homeland.

It would seem, what impact on coal chemistry can the invention of the incandescent grid in gas lamps have? But the fact is that before that, benzene was not extracted from raw gas: only its presence provided a satisfactory brightness of illumination. And after this invention, which made it possible to use gas "depleted" in benzene for lighting, it became possible to industrially extract crude benzene from coal gas. The "father" of industrial crude benzene is considered the German Brunck. Largely thanks to him, over the last decade of the 19th century, Germany increased the production of crude benzene from coal processing by 50 times.

At present, the world demand for crude benzene and other liquid products of coal chemistry is not covered by their production from coking and semi-coking coal. Therefore, a number of countries (Austria, Estonia, Israel, etc.) receive them from their oil shale. The cost of coal chemistry products obtained from oil shale is several times higher than the cost of the feedstock. Shale oil contains a gasoline-kerosene fraction even in a larger proportion than coal tar, in connection with which, for example, Australia plans in the future to completely replace imported oil with local oil shale.

As a fuel for power plants, coal reigned supreme until the invention of internal combustion engines that use petroleum products and are much more convenient for mobile operation. By the end of the first third of the 20th century, coal was not only completely replaced by oil products from road and air transport, but also noticeably lost its positions in water and rail transport. However, under the conditions of the oil blockade that Germany was subjected to during the Second World War, and South Africa in the post-war years, coal turned out to be a raw material capable of replacing liquid motor fuels. Synthetic liquid fuels were obtained from coal by hydrogenation (direct liquefaction), pyrolysis, coal gasification, followed by catalytic Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Although, in terms of economic indicators, synthetic fuels were more expensive than oil ones and, as a rule, their production ceased with the lifting of the blockade, the gradual depletion of oil reserves and a steady increase in prices for petroleum products force us to continue development in this direction. In particular, in Ukraine, the most favorable for the production of synthesis fuels are Dnieper brown coal, Lviv-Volyn sapropelites and Boltysh oil shale.

Despite all the variety of directions for the use of fossil coals, their main consumers to this day are thermal power engineering, metallurgy, and in rural areas and developing countries, the housing sector. And the more coal consumption grew in these sectors, the more acute became the contradiction between the ratio of required and received grades of coal, as well as between the output during mining and the consumption of varietal fractions and off-grade coal fines. Therefore, since the end of the 19th century, an intensive search was carried out for methods of eliminating these contradictions, and not without success.

For example, of all grades of coal, coking properties, i.e. the ability, when heated without air access, not only to give off volatile substances and sulfur, but also to sinter into a monolith with a given porosity and mechanical properties, only Zh (thick) and K (coke) grade coals possess, the share of which in the total production volume is relatively small and does not meet the needs of coke industries. Studies of the character and nature of plasticization and subsequent solidification of coals, begun in the 20s of the twentieth century by F. Fischer and subsequently developed by G.L. Stadnikov, D. van Crevelen, N.S. Gryaznov, made it possible not only to create a coherent theory of plasticization, but also to establish the possibility of obtaining coking charges (mixtures) from coals of a lower (gas, long-flame gas) and higher (lean sintering) degree of metamorphism, which almost doubled the raw material base for the production of metallurgical coke.

From coal, poison gases were obtained, which proved to be so terrible on the battlefields of the First World War. But on the basis of coal, however, at first wood, a means of protection against them was made. Medicinal qualities charcoal were described by Hippocrates 400 BC, but only in 1785 did the prominent Russian chemist and pharmacist Academician T.E. Lovitz showed that they are a consequence of its absorbing, or adsorption, properties. Lovitz not only laid the foundations of adsorption theory, but also effectively used charcoal for cleaning and bleaching. sugar syrups and molasses drinking water, crude saltpeter and even alcohol.

During the First World War, Russian professor N.D. Zelinsky invented ways to activate charcoal with water vapor and organic substances and successfully used activated charcoal in gas masks. Currently, the industry consumes many thousands of tons of technical activated carbons, mainly for cleaning Wastewater. These technical adsorbents are obtained by activating not wood, but fossil coals.

The stratified method of burning coal, which was unique to stoves, fireplaces, steam engines, and early steam boilers, required the use of lumpy coal (a very small fraction of fines was allowed). This is due to the fact that with natural draft between the particles of coal in the layer there should be enough space for free access of the oxidizer, and with forced draft (blowing), small particles should not be carried out of the layer. During the period when coal was mined by hand, the necessary share of lump coal during mining was provided by miners. At the same time, the seam was not completely excavated, and the productivity of the miners was low. The increase in production caused by the growth in consumption, which became possible only with the mechanization of mines, sharply increased the share of fines in the volume of coal mined. But the combustion of solid fuel, which in its size does not meet the optimal requirements, reduces the efficiency of its use by 15–20%, and in some cases the combustion process stops altogether. In this regard, the task of agglomeration (briquetting) of coal fines arose for technologies based on the consumption of lump (sorted) coal, and in parallel, the task of developing technologies where coal fines and dust can be used without their agglomeration.

Peat, brown coal, screenings of coal and anthracites, fine-grained semi-coke and coke are usually subjected to briquetting. The main consumers of briquettes are the domestic sector and the coke industry. Historically, two methods for the production of briquettes mechanically emerged first: without binders (due to the intrinsic binding properties of peat and brown coal) at a temperature of 40–80°C and a pressing pressure of 80 MPa or more; with additive binder(petroleum bitumen or coal tar pitch), necessary to ensure adhesion between particles of coal, anthracites, semi-coke and coke breeze, at a temperature of 80–100°C and a pressing pressure of 15–25 MPa.

The history of domestic coal briquette production dates back to the middle of the 19th century. In 1870, the first factory was built in Odessa, which produced anthracite briquettes for merchant fleet ships. In the 20th century, factories for briquetting anthracite fines in the Donbass (Mospinskaya, Donetskskaya, etc.) were put into operation, as well as large lignite briquette factories at the Alexandria lignite deposit.

In recent decades, the world has been actively developing the direction of briquetting with heat treatment of the initial fine coal or briquettes at temperatures of 400–500°C. These technologies make it possible to obtain the so-called "smokeless" household fuel of increased environmental cleanliness (with a lower sulfur content and less smoking when burned), as well as molded coke, which further expands

It is the fuel base of the coke industry.

The use of fossil coals as fuel increased immeasurably with the advent of steam engines and, especially, with the advent of machines capable of converting the thermal energy of burning coal into electrical energy (the first thermal power plants - TPPs). At thermal power plants thermal energy coal is used to generate steam in the boiler, which rotates the rotor steam turbine connected to the generator rotor electrical energy- the most convenient type of energy for the consumer. The first thermal power plants appeared at the end of the 19th century (in 1882 - in New York, in 1883 - in St. Petersburg, in 1884 - in Berlin, in 1895 - in Kiev). They were equipped with layered furnaces, which for a long time were the main devices for burning large amounts of fuel and were widely used for boilers with a steam output of 20–30 t/h. However, in addition to the limited scale and low efficiency associated with the relatively low temperature of the flue gases, their main disadvantage was the requirement to supply coal in the form of lumps and the limitation of the fraction of fines, which led to large carryovers of carbon from the furnace volume.

The situation changed at the end of the 1920s, when a number of countries developed and introduced furnaces for flaring solid fuel in a pulverized state, which made it possible to involve coal fines, including high ash content (up to 25–30% - for anthracite and lean, up to 30-40% - for bituminous coal), earthy brown coal, shale, as well as to increase the efficiency of power units up to 35-40%. Thus, at present, mainly low-grade coal and low-grade fines are sent to the power industry, which frees up graded coal for other uses.

Although pulverized coal, or chamber, furnaces are the most common in thermal power engineering today, they are increasingly being replaced by circulating fluidized bed (CFB) furnaces invented in Germany in the 60s of the 20th century, which also use coal fines, but have a number of technological and environmental advantages.

property. Boilers with a circulating fluidized bed are distinguished by low emissions of nitrogen oxides (due to a lower process temperature and the organization of an intra-furnace reduction zone) and sulfur (due to intra-furnace binding of coal sulfur by limestone), a wide range of load control, and most importantly, reduced requirements for coal ash content, which allows to use for burning not only high-ash ordinary coals, but also coal preparation waste. The first power unit in Ukraine with a circulating fluidized bed with an electrical capacity of 210 MW, using anthracite sludge as fuel, is being put into operation at Starobeshevskaya TPP.

Ghost town without coal. This was the Japanese Hasima. In the 1930s, it was recognized as the most densely populated.

On a tiny piece of land fit 5,000 people. All of them worked in the coal industry.

The island turned out to be literally built from a stone source of energy. However, by the 1970s, coal reserves were depleted.

Everyone left. Only the dug up island and the buildings on it remained. Tourists and the Japanese call Hashima a ghost.

The island clearly shows the importance of coal, the impossibility of mankind to live without it. There is no alternative.

There are only attempts to find it. Therefore, we will pay attention to the modern hero, and not to vague prospects.

Description and properties of coal

Coal is a rock of organic origin. This means that the stone is formed from the decomposed remains of plants and animals.

In order for them to form a dense thickness, constant accumulation and compaction is required. Suitable conditions at the bottom of reservoirs.

Where there is coal deposits, once there were seas, lakes. Dead organisms sank to the bottom, pressed down by the water column.

This is how it was formed peat. Coal- a consequence of its further compression under pressure of not only water, but also new layers of organic matter.

Main hard coal reserves belong to the Paleozoic era. 280,000,000 years have passed since its end.

This is the era of giant plants and dinosaurs, the abundance of life on the planet. It is not surprising that it was then that organic deposits accumulated especially actively.

Most often, coal was formed in swamps. There is little oxygen in their waters, which prevents the complete decomposition of organic matter.

Externally coal deposits they look like burnt wood. According to the chemical composition, the rock is a mixture of high-molecular carbon aromatic compounds and volatile substances with water.

Mineral impurities are insignificant. The ratio of components is not stable.

Depending on the predominance of certain elements, they distinguish types of coal. The main ones are brown and anthracite.

Buraya type of coal saturated with water, and therefore, has a low calorific value.

It turns out that the rock is not suitable as a fuel, as stone. And brown coal found another use. Which?

This will be given special attention. In the meantime, let's figure out why the water-saturated rock is called brown. The reason is the color.

Coal brownish, without, loose. From a geological point of view, the mass can be called young. That is, the processes of "fermentation" are not completed in it.

Therefore, the stone has a low density, when burned, a lot of volatile substances are formed.

fossil coal anthracite type - fully formed. It is denser, harder, blacker, shiny.

It takes 40,000,000 years for a brown rock to become like this. Anthracite has a high proportion of carbon - about 98%.

Naturally, the heat transfer from black coal is at a height, which means that the stone can be used as fuel.

The brown species in this role is used only for heating private houses. They do not need record energy levels.

All you need is ease of handling fuel, and anthracite is problematic in this regard. Lighting coal is not easy.

Manufacturers, railroad workers, adjusted themselves. Labor costs are worth it, because anthracite is not only energy intensive, but also does not sinter.

Hard coal - fuel, from the combustion of which remains ash. What is it from, if organic matter is converted into energy?

Remember the note about mineral admixture? It is the inorganic component of the stone that remains at the bottom.

A lot of ash was also left at the Chinese deposit in the province of Liuhuanggou. Anthracite deposits burned there for almost 130 years.

The fire was extinguished only in 2004. Every year, 2,000,000 tons of rock were burned.

Here, count how much coal wasted away. Raw materials could be useful not only as fuel.

The use of coal

Coal is called solar energy enclosed in stone. Energy can be transformed. It doesn't have to be thermal.

The energy obtained from the combustion of the rock is converted, for example, into electricity.

Combustion temperature of coal brown type almost reaches 2,000 degrees. In order to get electricity from anthracite, it will take about 3,000 Celsius.

If we talk about the fuel role of coal, it is used not only in its pure form.

In laboratories, organic rock has been used to produce liquid and gaseous fuels, and metallurgical plants have long used coke.

It is obtained by heating coal to 1,100 degrees without oxygen. Coke is a smokeless fuel.

The possibility of using briquettes as ore reducers is also important for metallurgists. So, coke comes in handy when casting iron.

Coke is also used as a batch baking powder. This is the name given to the mixture of the initial elements of the future.

Being loosened by coke, the mixture is more easily remelted. By the way, some components for are also obtained from anthracite.

As impurities, it may contain germanium and gallium - rare metals and not found anywhere else.

buy coal also strive for the production of carbon-graphite composite materials.

Composites are masses of several components, with a clear boundary between them.

Artificially created materials are used, for example, in aviation. Here, composites increase the strength of parts.

Carbon masses withstand both very high and low temperatures; they are used in contact network support posts.

In general, composites have already firmly entered into all spheres of life. Railroad workers cover new platforms with them.

Supports are made from nanomodified raw materials building structures. In medicine, with the help of composites, it is proposed to fill in chips on the bones and other injuries that are not subject to metal prosthetics. Here what kind of coal versatile and multifunctional.

Chemists have developed a method for producing plastics from coal. At the same time, no waste is wasted. The low-grade fraction is pressed into briquettes.

They serve as a fuel that is suitable for both private houses and production workshops.

V fuel briquettes there is a minimum of hydrocarbons. They, in fact, are the females valuable in the coal.

From it you can get pure benzene, toluene, xylenes, coumorane resins. The latter, for example, serve as the basis for paint and varnish products and such material for interior decoration as linoleum.

Some of the hydrocarbons are aromatic. People know the smell of mothballs. But, few people know that they produce it from coal.

In surgery, naphthalene serves as an antiseptic. In the household, the substance fights moths.

In addition, naphthalene is able to protect against the bites of a number of insects. Among them: flies, gadflies, horseflies.

Total, coal in bags purchase for the production of more than 400 types of products.

Many of them are by-products obtained in the coke production.

Interestingly, the cost of additional lines is usually more than that of coke.

If we consider the average difference between coal and goods from it, it is 20-25 times.

That is, the production is very profitable, quickly pays off. Therefore, it is not surprising that scientists are looking for more and more new technologies for processing sedimentary rock. There must be a supply for the growing demand. Let's get to know him.

Coal mining

Coal deposits are called basins. There are over 3,500 of them in the world. The total area of ​​the basins is about 15% of the land. Most coal in the United States.

23% of world reserves are concentrated there. Hard coal in Russia is 13% of the total reserves. at China. 11% of the rock is hidden in its bowels.

Most of them are anthracites. In Russia, the ratio of brown coal to black coal is approximately the same. In the United States, the brown type of rock predominates, which reduces the value of deposits.

Despite the abundance of brown coal, the US deposits are striking not only in volume, but also in scale.

The reserves of the Appalachian coal basin alone amount to 1,600 billion tons.

In the largest basin of Russia, for comparison, only 640 billion tons of rock are stored. We are talking about the Kuznetsk field.

It is located in the Kemerovo region. A couple more promising basins have been discovered in Yakutia and Tyva. In the first region, the deposits were called Elga, and in the second - Eleget.

The deposits of Yakutia and Tyva belong to closed type. That is, the rock is not at the surface, at depth.

It is necessary to build mines, galleries, shafts. It raises coal price. But, the scale of the deposits is worth the cost.

As for the Kuznetsk Basin, they work on a mixed system. About 70% of raw materials are extracted from the depths by hydraulic means.

30% of coal is mined openly using bulldozers. They are sufficient if the rock lies near the surface, and the covering layers are loose.

Coal is also mined openly in China. Most of China's deposits are located far outside the cities.

However, this did not prevent one of the deposits from causing inconvenience to the population of the country. This happened in 2010.

Beijing has sharply increased its demand for coal from Inner Mongolia. It is considered a province of China.

So many trucks with goods set off on the road that Highway 110 stood up for almost 10 days. The traffic jam started on the 14th of August, and was resolved only on the 25th.

True, there were no road works. Coal trucks made the situation worse.

Highway 110 belongs to the state roads. So, not only was the coal delayed on the way, but other contracts were also in jeopardy.

In you can find videos where drivers who drove along the highway in August 2010 report that they overcame a 100-kilometer stretch for about 5 days.

Coal- this is a solid, exhaustible, non-renewable mineral that a person uses to obtain heat by burning it. According to the classification, it belongs to sedimentary rocks.

What it is?

Coal as a source of energy, people began to use in antiquity along with firewood. The “flammable stone” was found on the surface of the earth, later it was purposefully mined from under it.

Coal appeared on Earth about 300-350 million years ago, when tree-like ferns flourished on primeval swamps and the first gymnosperms began to appear. Huge trunks fell into the water, gradually forming thick layers of undecomposed organic mass. Wood with limited access to oxygen did not rot, but gradually sank deeper and deeper under its weight. Over time, due to the displacement of the layers of the earth's crust, these layers sank to a considerable depth, and there, under the influence of great pressure and elevated temperature, qualitative change wood to coal.

Types of coal

mined today different kinds coal.

• Anthracites are the hardest grades with great depth and maximum combustion temperature.
• Hard coal - many varieties mined in mines and open way. It is widely used in many areas of human activity.
• Brown coal - formed from the remains of peat, the youngest type of coal. Has the most low temperature combustion.

All types of coal lie in layers and their locations are called coal basins.

Coal mining

At first, coal was simply collected at the places where the seam came to the surface. This could have happened as a result of the displacement of the layers of the earth's crust.

Often, after landslides in mountainous areas, such outcrops of the deposit were exposed, and people got the opportunity to get to pieces of “combustible stone”.

Later, when primitive technology appeared, coal began to be developed in an open way. Some coal mines plunged to a depth of more than 300 meters.

Today, thanks to the availability of sophisticated modern technology, people descend underground into mines more than a kilometer deep. From these horizons, the highest quality and valuable coal is mined.

Where is coal used?

All types of coal can be used to generate heat. When burned, it is released into more than you can get it from firewood or other solid fuels. The hottest grades of coal are used in metallurgy, where high temperatures are needed.

In addition, coal is a valuable raw material for the chemical industry. A lot of necessary and useful substances are extracted from it.

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"How Coal Was Formed" short message presented in this article will help you prepare for the lesson and expand your knowledge on this topic.

The message "How coal was formed"

Coal is an irreplaceable, exhaustible, solid mineral used by humans to generate heat in the process of burning it. It belongs to sedimentary rocks.

What is needed to form coal?

First, a lot of time. When peat is formed from plants at the bottom of the swamps, then there are chemical compounds: plants decay, partially dissolve or turn into methane, carbon dioxide.

Secondly, all kinds of fungi and bacteria. Thanks to them, the decomposition of plant tissue occurs. Peat begins to accumulate a persistent substance called carbon, which becomes more and more over time.

Thirdly, the lack of oxygen. If it accumulated in peat, then coal could not form and simply evaporated.

How is coal formed in nature?

Coal deposits were formed from a huge amount of plant matter. Ideal conditions are when all these plants have accumulated in one place and have not had time to completely decompose. Swamps are the best suited for this process: the water is poor in oxygen and therefore the vital activity of bacteria is suspended.

After the plant mass has accumulated in the swamps, it, without having time to completely rot, is compressed by soil deposits. This is how it is formed raw material coal - peat. Layers of soil seal it in the ground without access to oxygen and water. Over time, peat turns into a layer of coal. This process is long - a significant part of the coal reserves was formed more than 300 million years ago.

And the longer the coal lies in the layers of the earth, the stronger the fossil is exposed to the action and pressure of deep heat. In swamps where peat accumulates, sand, clay and dissolved substances enter with water, which are deposited in coal. These impurities give interlayers in the mineral, dividing it into layers. When coal is cleaned, only ash remains from them.

There are several types of coal - bituminous coal, brown coal, lignite, boghead, anthracite. Today there are 3.6 thousand coal basins in the world, which occupy 15% of the earth's land. The United States holds the largest percentage of the world's fossil reserves (23%), followed by Russia (13%) and China third (11%).

We hope that the report “How coal was formed” helped you prepare for the lesson. And you can add a message on the topic “How coal was formed”, you can use the comment form.

Since ancient times, mankind has been using coal as one of the sources of energy. And today this mineral is used quite widely. Sometimes it is called solar energy, which is preserved in stone.

Application

Coal is burned to produce heat that is used for hot water and home heating. The mineral is used in the technological processes of metal smelting. Thermal power plants convert coal into electricity by burning it.

Scientific advances have made it possible to use this valuable substance in a different way. Thus, the chemical industry has successfully mastered a technology that makes it possible to obtain liquid fuel from coal, as well as such rare metals as germanium and gallium. From a valuable fossil, carbon-graphite with a high carbon concentration is currently being extracted. Methods have also been developed for producing plastics and high-calorie gaseous fuels from coal.

A very low fraction of low-grade coal and its dust are pressed into briquettes after processing. This material is great for heating private houses and industrial premises. In general, more than four hundred items of various products are produced after chemical processing, which coal is subjected to. The price of all these products is ten times higher than the cost of raw materials.

Over the past few centuries, mankind has been actively using coal as a fuel necessary for obtaining and converting energy. Moreover, the need for this valuable mineral in Lately increases. This is facilitated by the development of the chemical industry, as well as the need for valuable and rare elements obtained from it. In this regard, intensive exploration of new deposits is underway in Russia today, mines and quarries are being created, enterprises are being built to process this valuable raw material.

Fossil origin

In ancient times, the Earth had a warm and humid climate, in which a variety of vegetation flourished. From it coal was later formed. The origin of this fossil lies in the accumulation of billions of tons of dead vegetation at the bottom of the swamps, where they were covered with sediment. About 300 million years have passed since then. Under the powerful pressure of sand, water and various rocks, vegetation slowly decomposed in an oxygen-free environment. Under the influence of high temperatures, which were given by the closely located magma, this mass solidified, which gradually turned into coal. The origin of all existing deposits has only such an explanation.

Mineral reserves and its extraction

There are large deposits of coal on our planet. In total, according to experts, the earth's bowels store fifteen trillion tons of this mineral. Moreover, the extraction of coal in terms of its volume is in the first place. It is 2.6 billion tons per year, or 0.7 tons per inhabitant of our planet.

Coal deposits in Russia are located in various regions. Moreover, in each of them, the mineral has different characteristics and has its own depth of occurrence. Below is a list that includes the largest coal deposits in Russia:

1. It is located in the southeastern part of Yakutia. The depth of coal in these places allows for open-pit mining. This does not require special costs, which affects the reduction in the cost of the final product.
2. Tuva deposit. According to experts, there are about 20 billion tons of minerals on its territory. The field is very attractive for development. The fact is that eighty percent of its deposits are located in one layer, which has a thickness of 6-7 meters.
3. Minusinsk deposits. They are located in the Republic of Khakassia. These are several deposits, the largest of which are Chernogorskoye and Izykhskoye. Pool stocks are small. According to experts, they range from 2 to 7 billion tons. Coal, which is very valuable in terms of its characteristics, is mined here. The properties of the mineral are such that when it is burned, a very high temperature is recorded.
4. This deposit, located in the west of Siberia, gives a product used in ferrous metallurgy. The coal that is mined in these places goes for coking. The volume of deposits here is simply huge.
5. This deposit gives the product of the most High Quality. The greatest depth of mineral deposits reaches five hundred meters. Mining is carried out both in open cuts and in mines.

Hard coal in Russia is mined in the Pechora coal basin. Deposits are also being actively developed in the Rostov region.

The choice of coal for the production process

In various industries, there is a need for different grades of minerals. What are the differences between hard coal? The properties and quality characteristics of this product vary widely.

This happens even if the coal has the same marking. The fact is that the characteristics of a fossil depend on the place of its extraction. That is why each enterprise, choosing coal for its production, should familiarize itself with its physical characteristics.

Properties

Coal differs in the following properties:

Degree of enrichment

Depending on the purpose of use, various hard coal can be purchased. In this case, the properties of the fuel become clear, based on the degree of its enrichment. Allocate:

1. Concentrates. Such fuel is used in the production of electricity and heat.

2. Industrial products. They are used in metallurgy.

3. fine fraction of coal (up to six millimeters), as well as dust resulting from rock crushing. Briquettes are formed from the sludge, which have good performance properties for household solid fuel boilers.

Degree of coalification

By this indicator distinguish:

1. Brown coal. This is the same coal, only partially formed. Its properties are somewhat worse than those of higher quality fuel. Brown coal produces low heat during combustion and crumbles during transportation. In addition, it has a tendency to spontaneous combustion.

2. Coal. This type of fuel has a large number of grades (brands), the properties of which are different. It is widely used in energy and metallurgy, housing and communal services and the chemical industry.

3. Anthracites. This is the highest quality type of coal.

The properties of all these forms of minerals differ significantly from each other. So, brown coal is characterized by the lowest calorific value, and anthracites are the highest. What is the best coal to buy? The price must be economically feasible. Based on this, the cost and specific heat are in the optimal ratio for ordinary coal (within $ 220 per ton).

Size classification

When choosing coal, it is important to know its dimensions. This indicator is encrypted in the grade of the mineral. So, coal happens:

- "P" - slab, which is large pieces over 10 cm.

- "K" - large, the size of which is from 5 to 10 cm.

- "O" - a nut, it is also quite large, with fragment sizes from 2.5 to 5 cm.

- "M" - small, with small pieces of 1.3-2.5 cm.

- "C" - a seed - a cheap fraction for long-term smoldering with dimensions of 0.6-1.3 cm.

- "Sh" - shtyb, which is mostly coal dust, intended for briquetting.

- "P" - ordinary, or non-standard, in which there may be fractions of various sizes.

Brown coal properties

This is the lowest quality coal. Its price is the lowest (about one hundred dollars per ton). formed in ancient swamps by pressing peat at a depth of about 0.9 km. This is the cheapest fuel containing a large amount of water (about 40%).

In addition, brown coal has a rather low heat of combustion. It contains a large amount (up to 50%) of volatile gases. If you use brown coal for the furnace, then it is in its own way quality characteristics will remind raw firewood. The product burns heavily, smokes heavily and leaves behind a large amount of ash. Briquettes are often prepared from this raw material. They have good operational characteristics. Their price is in the range of eight to ten thousand rubles per ton.

Properties of hard coal

This fuel is of better quality. Coal is a rock that is black in color and has a matte, semi-gloss or shiny surface.

This type of fuel contains only five to six percent moisture, which is why it has a high calorific value. Compared to oak, alder and birch firewood, coal gives 3.5 times more heat. The disadvantage of this type of fuel is its high ash content. The price of coal in summer and autumn ranges from 3900 to 4600 rubles per ton. In winter, the cost of this fuel increases by twenty to thirty percent.

Coal storage

If the fuel is supposed to be used for a long period, then it must be placed in a special shed or bunker. There it must be protected from direct sunlight and rain.

If the heaps of coal are large, then during storage it is necessary to constantly monitor their condition. Fine fractions in combination with high temperature and moisture can ignite spontaneously.