The New 308 Coal for Rapid Vitrinite Reflectance & Fluorescence Measurements

The 308 Coal is the newest Vitrinite Reflectance Measurement System from CRAIC Technologies and is designed to determine the grade of coal and coke by vitrinite reflectance. This ensures that the coal blends used in energy generation are optimised and consistent from batch to batch. However, the 308 Coal can also be used to acquire fluorescence and reflectance spectra of geological samples in order to more accurately grade them.

Vitrinite is a maceral of coal and is comprised of various polymers, cellulose and lignin. Measuring the amount of light reflected by vitrinite macerals is a key test to determining the thermal maturity of the coal blend and its suitability for industrial uses. The procedure has been standardized by a number of international bodies including both ISO and ASTM. All of the standards require the use of a microscope spectrophotometer such as the 308 Coal: a device designed to measure the intensity of light reflected from a microscopic sampling area. The procedure is simple: the 308 Coal measures the amount of light reflected from samples from the coal blend at hundreds of points after which a computerized statistical analysis is done. The results of the statistical analysis are used to determine the amount of vitrinite in the coal blend, its thermal maturity and therefore its value for coking. As hundreds of measurements need to be done on each sample it can be a very time consuming process. The 308 Coal can automate this process and dramatically improve a laboratories throughput and accuracy. The result is a histogram from which the thermal maturity of the coal to be used in steel production can be determined.

The 308 Coal can also do more than just measure vitrinite reflectance. It can also be used to measure the reflectance and fluorescence spectra of coals in addition to capturing digital images in full color. This ability to do spectroscopy is especially important as this gives a much higher level of discrimination than the measurement of single color.