Susceptibility to Spontaneous Combustion of Vietnamese Anthracite

Abstract

Since the first outbreak of spontaneous combustion occurred at Hong Thai Coal Mine in May 2004, several spontaneous combustions have occurred in other four anthracite coal mines as well as in one sub-bituminous coal mine in Vietnam. To account for those problems, the authors have tried to find differences in the susceptibilities to spontaneous combustion of coal samples from the coal fields in northern part of Vietnam by using an adiabatic oxidation process analyzer. From analysis of those data based on the Arrhenius' Equation as well as comparison of those data with site data of coal mines which have spontaneous combustion, the authors found that the oxidation reaction speed at lower temperature range less than 150 ℃ has much more significant meaning for starting spontaneous combustion of anthracite coal than that of bituminous or sub-bituminous coal. Comparison with three existent methods for evaluating the susceptibility to spontaneous combustion of coal has also been examined.

Keywords

• spontaneous combustion
• anthracite
• coal mine
• vietnam
• oxidation of anthracite