How coal is formed

Coal is a rock formed by carbon and other substances, is used as energy source and can be of plant or mineral origin. Its origin occurs in the Carboniferous period of the Paleozoic era as a result of the death of the immense forests of ferns and equisets that died and were buried in the swamps that inhabited, the lack of oxygen, pressure, water and mud prevented a degradation of plants from occurring and there was more and more accumulation of them giving rise to coal. The next section explains how coal occurs naturally in more detail.

We recommend you learn more on this topic with this other article about what is the importance of carbon for living beings.

Now that we have seen what it is, we come to comment How coal is formed for its natural process. These are the most important points of the coal formation process:

1. Carbon comes from dead plant remains which are deposited and accumulated in wet areas not very deep being covered by water.
2. When they are submerged, they are not in contact with the air, which would cause their decomposition, and when there was this absence of air the air anaerobic bacteria They begin a slow decomposition process.
3. After a long period of time, millions of years, certain elements are lost, such as hydrogen, and becoming more and more carbon.
4. Being a process that lasts so long on top of the plant challenges, a series of sediments are deposited that will help maintain anaerobic conditions since bacteria continue to do their job until natural coal is formed.

Mineral coal is obtained through miningeither to open or underground mining. The Open Sky Mining It occurs when coal is not too depth, so this type of extraction could be done up to a maximum of 60 meters deep, and consists of removing all the land that the coal site has on top until it is exposed and can be extracted.

The other way to obtain coal is through the underground miningthis practice is used when coal is very buried. To get the coal from such deep areas, tunnels and galleries are built where the miners extract the coal and where they transport it to the outside.

Here you can know how mineral extraction affects the environment.

It is a type of coal that is obtained from the wood carbonizationthe trees from which this is obtained charcoal are:

• Oak.
• Is.
• Willow.
• Eucalyptus.
• Black Alamo.
• Pine.

Its obtaining process is to burn this wood in ovens at high temperatures above 500 ºC And in the absence of oxygen, the result is a carbon coalapproximately 80%. The characteristics of vegetable coal are that it is solid, but it also has fragility and is porous.

As we have already mentioned, Coal can be of mineral or plant origin. The coal of plant origin can be of several types depending on the vegetable from which they proceed and the pressure and temperature conditions to which it has been submitted. We can find:

• Anthracite: It is the best quality coal and therefore the most wanted. This coal has between 90–97% carbon so it is the one that requires the most formation time.
• Coal: It is formed by 70 – 90% carbon, it also has good quality, it is hard and brilliant.
• Lignite: It has between 25 – 30% carbon, it has a matte black color and stains the skin when touching it, it produces a lot of ash when burning it.
• Peat: It is the one that has a lower training time, therefore a lower percentage of carbon, this type of coal is porous, spongy and light. It has a high percentage of humidity and its combustion generates many ashes.

The main consuming countries of coal are China, the US, Russia, India and Japan, consume 77% of all the coal used worldwide. The Coal applications or uses are:

• Electricity generation.
• Steel manufacturing.
• Cement manufacture.
• Domestic use
• Industrial processes that need heat.

If you want to read more articles similar to How coal is formedwe recommend that you enter our category of non -renewable energy.