Molecular simulation and experimental studies on CO and N adsorption to bituminous coal.

A coal fire is one of the most serious disasters in coal mining. To improve the efficiency of an inert gas for extinguishing the fire, the adsorption behavior of coal in CO/N mixed gas was investigated in this study. Proximate analysis, ultimate analysis, solid-state C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and molecular dynamics (MD) were applied to analyze and establish the bituminous coal molecular model. The adsorption behavior of bituminous coal in mixed gas mixtures with different proportions was studied using the bituminous coal model and Materials Studio (MS) software. A self-built coal adsorption experimental system was used for experiments. The adsorption of bituminous coal to CO is stronger than that to N, and there is a competitive adsorption relationship between them. The amount of CO adsorbed by the coal gradually increases as the CO partial pressure rises, consistent with the Langmuir model. With an increase in CO pressure, the total adsorption capacity, which is divided into the rapid increase stage, slow growth stage, and stable stage, also increases. The coal adsorbs 0.5050 cm/g, 0.7455 cm/g, 0.9450 cm/g, 1.0715 cm/g, and 1.2000 cm/g for pure N, 2%, 5%, 7%, and 10% CO, respectively, in the experiment. The results of the simulation and experiment show the same trend, which means that the injection of a small amount of CO into pure N will greatly improve the gas adsorption volume of the coal, demonstrating that it is feasible to improve the ability of the coal to absorb mixed gases by changing the gas concentration and consequently to increase the efficiency of inert gas for fire extinguishing and suppression.