Proximate analysis of coal by micro-TG method

The presented paper examines the feasibility of the application of micro-TG for the sake of proximate analysis of coal. It is aimed to develop a reliable and versatile procedure which allows to determine the content of each coal constituent during one experimental run. Among several investigated factors (i.e. temperature, heating rate, residence time, etc.), a special focus is given to the procedure of purging the TG furnace, which is claimed to be a possible source of erroneous moisture content determination. Analysis performed for nine samples indicates that the proposed method provides results close to these given by standardized approach, while discrepancies in the amount of measured moisture, volatile matter, fixed carbon and ash are not higher than 0.2%, 0.6%, 1.0% and 1.0% respectively.