ADVANCED SOLIDS NMR STUDIES OF COAL STRUCTURE AND CHEMISTRY

This report covers the progress made on the title project for the project period. The study of coal chemical structure is a vital component of research efforts to develop better chemical utilization of coals, and for furthering our basic understanding of coal geochemistry. In this grant we are addressing several structural questions pertaining to coals with advances in state of the art solids NMR methods. Our goals are twofold. First, we are interested in developing new methods that will enable us to measure important structural parameters in whole coals not directly accessible by other techniques. In parallel with these efforts we will apply these NMR methods in a study of the chemical differences between gas-sourcing and oil-sourcing coals. The NMR methods work will specifically focus on determination of the number and types of methylene groups, determination of the number and types of methane groups, identification of carbons adjacent to nitrogen and sites with exchangeable protons, and methods to more finely characterize the distribution of hydrogen in coals. The motivation for investigating these specific structural features of coals arises from their relevance to the chemical reactivity of coals, and their suitability for possible correlations with the oil sourcing potential of some types of coals. The coals to be studied and contrasted include oil-prone coals from Australia and Indonesia, those comprising the Argonne Premium Coal Sample bank, and other relevant samples. In this report period we have focused our work on 1 segment of the program. Our last report outlined progress in using our NMR editing methods with higher field operation where higher magic angle spinning rates are required. Significant difficulties were identified, and these have been the main subject of study during the most recent granting period