Coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. Coal is composed primarily of carbon along with variable quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.

Industry: Energy

Add a new term

Contributors in Coal

Become a Contributors

Coal

fire damp

Mining; Coal

A name given to many kinds of flammable gasses in a coal mine, but it especially refers to methane. The gases are formed by the decomposition of coal and is usually between 5% and 15% methane.

fissure

Mining; Coal

A crack or fracture in a rock.

fixed carbon

Mining; Coal

The carbon left in coal after all other volatile material has been burned off. It is used as an estimate for how much coke will be produced.

flat-lying

Mining; Coal

Coal deposits and seams that do not angle more than 5 degrees past the horizontal.

flue gas desulfurization

Energy; Coal

A process by which sulfur dioxide (SO2) is removed from the waste of coal combustion by devices called scrubbers. Limiting sulfur dioxide's entrance into the atmosphere is a key component to ...

fly ash

Energy; Coal

One of two types of coal ash, the other being bottom ash, fly ash is created through the combustion of coal. There are high quantities of silicon dioxide (SiO2) and calcium oxide (CIO) found in fly ...