LAUSR

In the situation where the coking coal reserve rapidly decreases and the coking coal price soars, a technology needs to be developed by which metallurgical coke can be produced using unused low-grade carbonaceous resources such as brown coals and subbituminous coals. Brown coal reserves are large in such countries as Australia and Indonesia. However, it is difficult to transport them due to their high spontaneous combustibility. Therefore, brown coal is at the present days used only for electric power generation near the coal mining sites. Since brown coals often have the advantage of significantly low ash and sulfur contents, they have the high potential as a feedstock of clean fuels or materials. Coking coals show thermoplasticity between around 400°C and 550°C, which is required for producing a coke with high mechanical strength using conventional coke ovens. On the other hand, brown coals generally have no thermoplasticity in the temperature range. There are a lot of oxygen-containing functional groups such as hydroxyl and carboxyl groups in the brown coals, and they form strong hydrogen bondings to connect molecules. The oxygen-containing functional groups forming hydrogen bondings turn into cross-links when they decompose around 300°C. The Production of Metallurgical Coke from Low Rank Coal Utilizing Wet Oxidation