The behaviour of inertinite macerals under pulverised fuel (pf) combustion conditions

The usefulness of the current system of classification of the inertinite group of macerals for understanding the pulverised fuel (pf) combustion process is discussed and questioned. Results to date on the combustibility of inertinite macerals are indecisive, especially as inertinite is mosltly regarded as a single entity. Simulated pf combustion experiments with a laser microreactor revealed that the inertinite macerals yielded a wide diversity of char morphologies. With one-to-one correlations between maceral and char, it was possible to determine which maceral was fusible or infusible (commonly called reactive and inert respectively). The microreactor is being developed to measure the burning parameters of individual maceral particles. For example, the data will show which macerals are slow burning (and by how much) and whether fusibility has any relevance to the speed of char burning.