Access the National Coal Quality Inventory database (NaCQI): In 1999, the National Coal Quality Inventory (NaCQI) project was initiated to address a need for quality information on coals that will be mined during the next 20-30 years. The primary objective of this project was to create a database containing comprehensive, accurate and accessible chemical information on the quality of United States coals. This objective was to be accomplished through maintaining the existing U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) publicly available coal quality database and expanding that database through the acquisition of new samples from priority areas. Analysis of the new samples using updated coal analytical chemistry procedures were performed by the USGS and commercial laboratories. Priority areas include those where future sources of compliance coal are federally owned. This project was a cooperative effort between the USGS, various State geological surveys, universities, coal burning utilities, and the coal mining industry. Funding support came from the USGS, Electric Power Research Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy.
A total of 729 samples of raw or prepared coal, coal-associated shale, and coal combustion products (fly ash, hopper ash, bottom ash and gypsum) from nine coal producing States were analyzed for major-, minor- and trace-element concentrations. In addition, many samples had proximate and ultimate analyses generated. The elemental chemical data are presented in EXCEL format on both a remnant moisture basis (like the USGS COALQUAL database) and also on a dry basis.
One derivative product resulting from the NaCQI sample collection and analytical program was the creation of a new coal reference standard. The USGS, in cooperation with Quality Associates International (Ontario, Canada), which operates a program called CANSPEX, identified a need for a reference material that is a high-volatile-B or high-volatile-A bituminous coal (minimum of 13,000 Btu/lb, moist, mineral-matter-free basis) with low contents of ash yield and sulfur, and very low, but detectable contents of chlorine, mercury and other trace elements.
Based on chemical analyses of four coal samples collected by the Colorado Geological Survey (CGS), from the West Elk Mine near Somerset, Colorado, the coal produced at the West Elk Mine was identified as having a chemical composition that closely matched the requirements for the new coal reference material.
In April, 2003, the USGS and the CGS collected about 1000 pounds of coal from the West Elk Mine. This coal has been crushed, ground and split and the chemical analysis of the new coal standard is now in the final steps of certification.
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