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

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  • Frontiers of Physics
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Abstract

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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, 030006, China

    Yang Zhao  (赵洋), Lei Zhang  (张雷), Shu-Xia Zhao  (赵书霞), Yu-Fang Li  (李郁芳), Yao Gong  (弓瑶), Lei Dong  (董磊), Wei-Guang Ma  (马维光), Wang-Bao Yin  (尹王保), Lian-Tuan Xiao  (肖连团) & Suo-Tang Jia  (贾锁堂)

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, 030006, China

    Lei Zhang  (张雷), Lei Dong  (董磊), Wei-Guang Ma  (马维光), Wang-Bao Yin  (尹王保), Lian-Tuan Xiao  (肖连团) & Suo-Tang Jia  (贾锁堂)

  3. School of Electric Power, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Shun-Chun Yao  (姚顺春) & Ji-Dong Lu  (陆继东)

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  1. Yang Zhao  (赵洋)
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  2. Lei Zhang  (张雷)
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Correspondence to Lei Zhang  (张雷) or Wang-Bao Yin  (尹王保).

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Zhao, Y., Zhang, L., Zhao, SX. et al. Review of methodological and experimental LIBS techniques for coal analysis and their application in power plants in China. Front. Phys. 11, 114211 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-016-0600-7

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