Abstract-Quantitative Assessment of Rock-Coal Powder Mixtures by Terahertz Time Domain Spectroscopy

 Jingjing Deng, Fatima Taleb, Jan Ornik, Enjie Ding, Martin Koch,  Enrique Castro-Camus 

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10762-021-00803-9

The enormous risk that mine environments impose to the staff directly involved in the mineral extraction process makes the use of automated technologies extremely relevant, in order to minimize the risk of operators . Coal still represents a significant proportion of the fuel supply in several countries such as China, and mining it is an activity of tremendous economic importance . In this letter, we present terahertz (THz) spectroscopy as a potential tool for the quantitative recognition of rock-coal mixtures in powder form. This could lead to the implementation of appropriate sensors for in-line feedback to mining equipment in order to avoid or, at least, minimize the extraction of unwanted surrounding rock without the direct presence of human operators.

Abstract-Recognition of coal from other minerals in powder form using terahertz spectroscopy

 

Jingjing Deng, Jan Ornik, Kai Zhao, Enjie Ding, Martin Koch, and Enrique Castro-Camus

 We show micrographs of the powders produced, the bottom of each image shows a ruler with a spacing of 1mm between marks. The samples shown are Siltstone (a) sieve 1 (691 𝜇$\mu$m-1204 𝜇$\mu$m) and (b) sieve 5 (222 𝜇$\mu$m-512 𝜇$\mu$m), as well as Fat coal (c) sieve 1 (691 𝜇$\mu$m-1204 𝜇$\mu$m) and (d) sieve 5 (222 𝜇$\mu$m-512 𝜇$\mu$m

https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-28-21-30943

Currently a significant fraction of the world energy is still produced from the combustion of mineral coal. The extraction of coal from mines is a relatively complex and dangerous activity that still requires the intervention of human miners, and therefore in order to minimize risks, automation of the coal mining process is desirable. An aspect that is still under investigation is potential techniques that can recognize on-line if the mineral being extracted from the mine is coal or if it is the surrounding rock. In this contribution we present the proof of concept of a method that has potential for recognition of the extraction debris from mining based on their terahertz transmission.

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