Investigation and Measurement of Ash Content of Coal in Zirab Coal Mine-Iran Using Dual Energy -Ray and X-Ray Fluorescence Methods

Coal with low ash content has an important role in the coal and steel industry. There are different methods to measure the ash content. The conventional method which is used in most coal mines of Iran, is to burn the coal and measure the remaining ash. A new method has been recently developed at Nuclear Research Center (NRC) of Iran, Which works on the basis of the absorption of the dual energy g-ray by coal. In this paper we present the results obtained from coal mine "Zirab, Central Alborz Iran" to which we have applied this method, and compared the results with those obtained by the conventional method. In addition, the chemical components of the coal samples from six layers of this mine was obtained by X-ray fluorescence (XRF). We have found that for SiO2, Al2O3, TiO2, Na2O and K2O there exists a linear relationship between these components and the ash content, but such a relationship was not obtained for Fe2O3, CaO, SO3 and MgO.