Leaching characteristics of elements from coal and flyash samples

In India coal is the widely used source of power generation and flyash is its major residue after combustion. The flyash so produced is always a reason of study for researchers due to its toxicity and adverse effects on environment. So the focus of this study is to investigate the behaviour of the water soluble elements in pulverized flyash from Indian thermal power plants by using leaching process. For this purpose, samples of pulverized flyash and coal are collected from Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Power Plant, Bathinda, Punjab, India. Triple distilled water was used as a leachant by varying its pH values. The elemental analysis of coal, flyash and leachate from the flyash and coal has been performed using x-ray fluorescence (XRF) technique. Flyash and coal samples are also characterized by other different methods; vir., x-ray' Diffraction (XRD) analysis, Carbon Hydrogen Nitrogen Sulphur (CHNS) analysis and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) imaging