Application of X-Ray Computed Tomography for Analyzing Cleats and Pores for Coalbed Methane in Coal from Thar Coalfield

Abstract

The CT (Computed Tomography) is a non-destructive technique that can provide information of internal structure of coal in two-dimensional, this technology is now widely used in geoscientific research. This technique is used for the measuring cleat dimension and pore width of the Thar coal. The slicing study of Thar coal shows that the length of cleats in various seams ranges from 0.5-5mm and the aperture of these cleats vary between 0.1-0.5mm. The porosity also plays an important role in storage and production of coalbed methane, the size or width of pores in coal under investigation ranges between 0.1-0.7mm. The present investigation shows that Seam-III and V of the can be considered as viable as hold a potential for CBM (Coalbed Methane) resources, however, the coal samples from these seams need to be analyzed for the presence of methane In Thar coalfield, the pore volume ranges from 0.06-2.36 cc/g and pore diameter in Thar coal ranges from meso-pore and macro-pore (34.81-121.51Å). These meso and macro-pores serve as transport pathways, and little methane is stored in these pores in the adsorbed state

Keywords

• X-Ray Computed Tomography
• Cleats
• Picker-IQ
• CT Slices