Gas generation by coal matter in contemporary conditions

Institute of Geotechnical Mechanics named by N. Poljakov of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 49005, Dnipro, Simferopolska Str., 2a, Ukraine

^* Corresponding author: gvrvg@meta.ua

Abstract

A new approach for the study of processes at the atomic-molecular level occurring in the current situation in fossil carbonized organics was proposed. A new phenomenological model of physicochemical transformations in a metastable coal substance with the emission of fluids has been developed. The proposed physic/chemical model is based on the genetic connection of coal methane with fossil organic matter and determines the conditions for the activation of structural transformations in coalmines. This model describes the possible options for the coal/gas system development in the current situation. The accumulation of thermal and mechanical energy by coal in the form of structural stresses in an amount, sufficient to activate free-radical reactions, was experimentally established. In the undisturbed coalrock massif the processes of the coal molecular structure transformation have the relaxation character. The result of relaxation of the accumulated energy in the conditions of a gas-saturated coalrock massif is the methane generation by coal. Gas generation in the process of coalification, in its essence, is the energy response of the system to the action of external geomechanical options (temperature and pressure), by the way of releasing the accumulated additional energy with the emission of gaseous products and the destruction of the solid phase in the organic matter of the coal.