Reliable analysis of solid fuels

Elemental analysis is an established technique for solid fuel characterization. By determining a fuel’s elemental composition, its calorific value can be determined. In addition, the analysis of solid fuels is important for the determination of their purity and environmental compatibility. Our elemental analyzers for solid fuel analysis help to determine the chemical composition, commercial quality, and regulatory compliance of solid fuels like coal, coke, biomass, and other solid carbon-based fuels.

In today’s competitive energy market, renewable, sustainable energy sources become more important than ever. Solid biofuels represent a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, but also impose unique challenges onto elemental analyzers due to their difficulty to homogenize and their large elemental ratios. We offer elemental analyzers with industry-leading technology for reliable quality and emission control in solid fuels, even in challenging samples such as solid biofuels.

Experience simultaneous, high-precision carbon and sulfur analysis in coal, coke, or waste with our rapid CS cube elemental analyzer. By using tin foil to wrap the samples, there is no problem with dust and contamination inside the analyzer. The rapid CS cube offers an integrated autosampler as standard for high sample throughput and safe unattended overnight measurements. Thus, you can enjoy outstanding, low-maintenance efforts and the highest possible instrument uptime. The rapid CS cube is in accordance with all important international coal and coke standards, such as ASTM D4239-12 (S in coal and coke), DIN 51724-3 (S in solid fuels), etc.

CHNS determination forms part of the standard methods when it comes to determining the quality of solid fossil fuels. Our vario MACRO cube elemental analyzer is optimized for the analysis of large sample weights, which is especially important when coal samples, wood, and plant material, or other inhomogeneous materials are analyzed. The analyzer is designed to offer industry-leading versatility in elemental analysis and addresses all applications with macro sample volumes and weights. No add-on modules or extra furnaces are required for sulfur analysis, all four elements can be determined from just a single sample.

Oxygen concentration analysis is gaining importance in the fuel industry. Regulations, as well as the current market, demand more and more direct analytical determination of oxygen concentrations, as oxygen concentration derived from the indirect calculation by difference, suffers from cumulative errors. Our rapid OXY cube® oxygen analyzer with its patented backflush technology perfectly fits these analytical demands, offering unrivaled precision and accuracy in oxygen determination.

Chlorine determination in coal used to be a tricky and time-consuming task. A common method consists of sample digestion by bomb calorimeter, followed by off-line detection of the chlorine content using microcoulometry or ion chromatography. In contrast, our elemental analyzers allow fully automated chlorine determination by a low-maintenance electrochemical cell with standard analysis times of < 20 min. Less than 15 min/day has to be spent on maintenance work, which results in more than 90 % instrument uptime. A set of different electrochemical cells covers the measuring range from 0.005 % - 100 % chlorine in classical elemental analysis.