Chicago Paper - Sulfur in Coal, Geological Aspects

The following paper is intended to be suggestive only, and to open the way for discussion and further observation. Its preparation was requested only two days before the time limit set for the submission of the papers comprising this symposium. Thus no time existed for detailed studies, so it is largely a memorandum of such facts as have come incidentally to the notice of the writer in the study of coal in the field. The field study of sulfur in coal has received very little special attention or description from coal student's. The presence of sulfur concretions is noted in hundreds of descriptions, and certain benches of a coal bed may be described as "sulfury" or the presence and position of sulfur bands may be noted in coal sections in connection with sampling. It may be accepted that some sulfur is present in all coal. The amount varies greatly in different regions, in different beds, and in the same bed in different areas. The anthracite of Rhode Island comes the nearest of any coal known to the writer of being free from sulfur, several analyses of that coal showing less than 0.1 per cent. Subbitumi-nous coals in Colorado in a few places have close to 0.2 per cent. of sulfur on the dry-coal basis and in other states subbituminous coals approach this lower limit. Bituminous coals seldom run under 0.4 per cent. of sulfur on the dry basis, though in a few places dry bituminous coals in Colorado and Washington have between 0.3 and 0.4 per cent. The better known bituminous coals have almost everywhere over 0.4 per cent. The best of the Pocahontas and New River coals run close to 0.4 per cent., but there is very little commercial coal in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, or the other states, that runs under 0.5 per cent. on the dry basis. From these minimum figures, the amount will range up to 5 or 6 per cent. or higher if visible sulfur is not excluded. It must be remembered that the usual analysis of a coal bed is not intended to give the total proportion of sulfur in the bed but the amount in the coal after the removal of the more obvious and larger sulfur masses. Professor Parr has already pointed out that, chemically, sulfur occurs in several forms: as pyrite, organic sulfur, sulfates, and possibly as un-combined sulfur. Sulfur in the form of sulfates is commonly the obvious result of the weathering of pyrite and may be found in the coal within .