Study on the pore structure and oxygen-containing functional groups devoting to the hydrophilic force of dewatered lignite

In order to explore the water-holding capacity of dewatered lignite and the contribution of pore structure and oxygen-containing functional groups to it, a kind of typical Chinese lignite was dried under the atmosphere of nitrogen for different temperatures and times, and then was subjected to a process of moisture re-adsorption at the temperature of 25 °C and relative humidity of 75%. Nitrogen adsorption and chemical titration methods were used to examine the pore structure parameters and amounts of oxygen-containing functional groups, respectively. The results indicate that the porous structure and oxygen-containing functional groups in lignite are two main factors influencing the hydrophilicity of dewatered coal, and their contributions are varied with the change of drying conditions. The change of water-holding capacity of pore structure is primarily attributed to the shrinkage or collapse of macro- and mesoporous and it decreases with the increase of drying temperature. The oxygen-containing functional groups mainly include phenolic hydroxyl, carbonyl, carboxyl and methoxyl groups, and the order of their hydrophilicity is: carboxyl group > phenolic hydroxyl group > carbonyl group > methoxyl group. Moreover, the water-holding capacity for the same kind of oxygen-containing functional groups in dewatered coal obtained at different temperature is not a fixed one, their hydrophilic forces decrease with the increase of drying temperature. For the coal samples dried for 60 min under different temperature, the contribution of pore structure and oxygen-containing functional groups to the equilibrium moisture content (EMC) of dewatered lignite is: pore structure > phenolic hydroxyl group > carboxyl group > carbonyl group > methoxyl group. The contribution of total oxygen-containing functional groups to the EMC at below 280 °C is more obvious, and that of pore structure is the principal factor thereafter.