Review of methodological and experimental LIBS techniques for coal analysis and their application in power plants in China

• Published in: Frontiers of physics Vol. 11; no. 6; p. 114211
• Main Authors: Zhao, Yang, Zhang, Lei, Zhao, Shu-Xia, Li, Yu-Fang, Gong, Yao, Dong, Lei, Ma, Wei-Guang, Yin, Wang-Bao, Yao, Shun-Chun, Lu, Ji-Dong, Xiao, Lian-Tuan, Jia, Suo-Tang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Higher Education Press 01.12.2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Ashes; Astronomy; Astrophysics and Cosmology; Atomic; calibration model; Carbon; coal quality; Coal-fired power plants; Commercialization; Condensed Matter Physics; elemental analysis; Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy; Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS); Molecular; Optical and Plasma Physics; Particle and Nuclear Physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; proximate analysis; Reproducibility; Review Article; Spectroscopy; Spectrum analysis; China; calibration model; 42.62.Fi; coal quality; proximate analysis; 42.62.-b; Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS); elemental analysis; 42.60.-v
• ISSN: 2095-0462; 2095-0470
• DOI: 10.1007/s11467-016-0600-7

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an emerging analytical spectroscopy technique. This review presents the main recent developments in China regarding the implementation of LIBS for coal analysis. The paper mainly focuses on the progress of the past few years in the fundamentals, data pretreatment, calibration model, and experimental issues of LIBS and its application to coal analysis. Many important domestic studies focusing on coal quality analysis have been conducted. For example, a proposed novel hybrid quantification model can provide more reproducible quantitative analytical results; the model obtained the average absolute errors (AREs) of 0.42%, 0.05%, 0.07%, and 0.17% for carbon, hydrogen, volatiles, and ash, respectively, and a heat value of 0.07 MJ/kg. Atomic/ionic emission lines and molecular bands, such as CN and C2, have been employed to generate more accurate analysis results, achieving an ARE of 0.26% and a 0.16% limit of detection (LOD) for the prediction of unburned carbon in fly ashes. Both laboratory and on-line LIBS apparatuses have been developed for field application in coal-fired power plants. We consider that both the accuracy and the repeatability of the elemental and proximate analysis of coal have increased significantly and further efforts will be devoted to realizing large-scale commercialization of coal quality analyzer in China.