Inorganic Element Functional Group Database on Pulverized Coal Surface Based on XPS Method

Huyi 1 Li Peisheng 1 * Lijie 1 Husong 2 Xiangjun 2 Sun lushi 2 Sun xuexin 2 Yuliang 3

(1 College of Power & Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan University , P.R. China)

(2 State Key Laboratory of Coal Combustion, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, P.R. China)

(31College of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Zhejiang University, P.R. China)

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is a kind of method for solid materials surface analysis. Since Frost etc. applied XPS method in functional group characterization on coal surface in 1974 firstly, the XPS method was introduced into the domain of coal studying gradually, especially in the study of quantitative analysis and existent forms of inorganic element functional groups, such as C, H, O, N and S etc, which have great influence on processing of coal combustion and pyrolysis, pollutant formation and release during coal combustion and pyrolysis.

There may be various functional groups in coal for its intrinsic complexity of structures and compositions, thus it’s difficult for peak-spliting of different kinds of elements and determining the binding energy of the sub-peaks. Though the existing XPS database ,such as Nist etc. , are wide used in coatings, sensors, catalysts, biomaterials, electronic materials, ceramics, polymers, thin films and composite materials to find XPS data of various elements and functional groups, they are hard to be utilized directly for functional groups in coal in many situations.

In this paper, the achievements by using XPS to probe functional groups of coal surfaces are reviewed. Together with author’s accumulation, the classification and basic characterization of inorganic element functional groups (C, H, O, N, S etc.) on the surfaces of various coal from different producing areas are summarized. Functional group characterization database is established, including the kind of functional group, binding energy value, peak width and spike etc. It can be used to find data and analysis conveniently, and also help for further coal study with XPS method.

Keywords: XPS; functional groups; coal ;database