Hydrogen in coal. The feasibility of determination by neutron methods

An increasing interest in coal problems, such as processing, underground gasification, and combating the methane danger, leads to the need for techniques to determine rapidly the hydrogen content in coal seams. Neutron methods seem to be particularly useful for this purpose. In order to test their usefulness, neutron parameters of coal versus its hydrogen content were calculated. Next, the stationary neutron fields were considered using some different theoretical approaches. Strong dependences are observed, thus confirming the feasibility of the proposed determinations, especially with applying the epithermal-neutron gauges, since the appreciable matrix effects can be expected in the case of thermal neutron detection. The interfering influence of the borehole was considered using the experimentally verified theoretical approach. (author)