Elemental analysis of coal and coal residues using an external (in air) PIGE

Coal has an impact on economic growth of the developing countries. Including power generation, it has great role in many industries like steel, cement and paper industries. So, it is necessary to evaluate the quality of coal through elemental concentration using suitable analytical method. In this view the coal and coal residue samples were collected from different thermal power plants of Punjab and Haryana. An external (in air) Particle Induced Gamma-ray Emission (PIGE) method using Tantalum as the external beam current normalizer was applied for quantification of low Z elements present in the analyzed coal and coal residues samples