Reflection and transmission mid-infrared spectroscopy for rapid determination of coal properties by multivariate analysis

In the present paper, the influence of different acquisition techniques (transmission, diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform and attenuated total reflectance) in the determination of nine coal properties related to combustion power plants has been studied. Raw coal samples of different origins were pooled for developing a correlation between the resultant spectra and the corresponding coal properties by multivariate analysis techniques. Thus, the existent collinearity in mid-infrared coal spectra led to the application of partial least squares regression (PLS), studying simultaneously the influence of different spectroscopic units as well as several spectral data mathematical pre-treatments. On the other hand, a principal component analysis (PCA) revealed a relationship between principal components and coal composition in both transmission and reflection techniques. Although the best accuracy and precision results were obtained for coal properties related to organic matter, the system was also able to differentiate coal samples attending to the presence of a specific mineral matter, kaolinite.