Express quality analysis of coal concentrates by diffuse reflection IR spectroscopy

Ongoing quality monitoring of coal concentrates is important today on account of instability in the raw materials for coking at OAO Magnitogorskii Metallurgicheskii Kombinat (MMK) and the variable composition of the coal batch for enrichment plants. Currently, numerous standardized methods permit the determination of the classificational and quality characteristics of coal and batch. These methods are slow, laborious, and relatively ineffective in industrial conditions. In May 2005, an automated Spektrotest express-analysis system developed by ECCI was installed in the coke laboratory at ZAO RMK in order to determine the quality of the coal concentrate and batch. The basic equipment is an IR spectrometer with a unit for Fourier transformation and a special optical module yielding the reflect on spectra of the pulverized coal. A control station based on a high-speed computer runs an algorithm for information analysis and storage and for printing out the test protocol. The Spektrotest system includes complex algorithms and software specially developed at ECCI.