Experimental study on inhibition of coal spontaneous combustion by carbon dioxide and nitrogen

Injecting CO2 and N2 to reduce the concentration of O2 in the air is a commonly used measure to prevent coal spontaneous combustion (CSC). To study the difference in inhibitory effects of CO2 and N2 on coal oxidation, experiments in this study were conducted using a setup of self-developed gas-bath coal oxidation for low temperatures. The oxidation process of the coal-oxygen system was then analyzed using reaction kinetics. Two different coal samples were tested in experiments under two inert gas environments, i.e. CO2 and N2 with various O2 concentrations, respectively. The changes in O2 and CO concentrations were measured during the oxidation process. By studying the standard oxygen consumption rate (SOCR) and the apparent activation energy of the coal-oxygen reaction system, inhibitory effects of CO2 and N2 on CSC were analyzed and compared. The results showed that the SOCR of the same coal sample remained consistent and independent of the O2 concentration within the same inert gas environment although under different O2 levels. In both CO2-O2 and N2-O2 environments, the SOCR of the coal sample exhibits exponential growth with temperature. The SOCR was found to have a functional connection with temperature, it can be represented as y=a⋅ebT, and the R2 (determination coefficients) of the fitting formulas are all greater than 0.94. In the correlation, the inert gas environment has minimal impact on coefficient "b," while in the CO2-O2 environment, reducing the value of coefficient "a" can effectively lower the coal sample's SOCR. The GBMK sample and YMWK sample have an "a" value that is 20% of the value in the N2-O2 environment when oxidizing in the CO2-O2 environment. The SOCR in the CO2-O2 environment showed a decrement of between 26.0% and 52.1% when compared to that in the N2-O2 environment, whereas the activation energy showed an increment between 1.4% and 18.6%. The findings in this work provide an in-depth understanding of the prevention of CSC in the gob for risk mitigation.