Study on coal origin traceability technology based on infrared spectrum

Abstract

With the increasing dependence of China's coal on the outside world, the problem of coal import adulteration and coal filling is becoming increasingly serious, so it is imperative to establish the accurate, fast, convenient, safe, and environmentally friendly technology of coal origin tracing. In recent years, infrared spectroscopy has been widely used in the field of origin identification in medicine, food, industry and so on. The infrared spectrum contains abundant informationon composition and structure, and the differencesin composition and molecular structure of coals among different countries and regions can be used as the characteristic indications of source tracing. Therefore, in this paper, 30 imported coal samples from 5 countries were collected and analyzed by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometry, and the characteristics of coal samples from different producing areas were analyzed using principal component analysis, discriminant analysis, and other chemometrics methods.A coal source tracing model based on infrared spectral characteristic information in three countries was established, and its accuracy was verified. The main conclusions are as follows: ①There are differences in the shapes of infrared spectra curves and the types of functional groups in coals from different countries, and the number, position, and intensity of the absorption peaks of the same functional group were also different. ②Based on the infrared spectra data of 23 coal samples from 3 countries, the characteristic information database of functional groups was established, and the principal component analysis and discriminant analysis were carried out for the chemometrics analysis. The traceability models of coal origin in Russia, Indonesia, and Australia were established. ③The accuracy of the origin tracing model is verified by coal samples from known origins, and the accuracy of the result is 100%. The more samples there are, the higher the accuracy and the better the traceability effect of the model.

Keywords

• coal
• infrared spectrum
• characteristic functional group
• discriminant analysis
• principal component analysis
• origin traceability