Study on the slurry characteristics and surface microscopic interactions mechanism of diesel modified low-rank coal

In this study, the slurry formation properties and multi-phase dispersion mechanism of hydrocarbon modified low-rank coal (LRC) were explored by combining experiments and simulations, aiming to provide some theoretical guidance for the slurrying of surface-modified LRC. The experimental results revealed that compared with the LRC water slurry (LRCWS), the consistency of the diesel modified low-rank coal water slurry (M−LRCWS) is decreased, the pseudo plasticity is enhanced, and the constant viscosity concentration is increased by 1.89 %. The results of XPS analysis indicated that the surface C/O of M−LRC increases from 5.67 (LRC) to 6.83, and the content of oxygen-containing groups decreases by 3.10 %, indicating that the surface non-polarity is enhanced. In molecular dynamics simulation, compared with the two dispersed systems of COAL/ Sodium poly[(naphthaleneformaldehyde) sulfonate] (MF)/H 2 O (CMW) and COAL/ Dodecane (DD)/MF/H 2 O (CDMW), the E bin of water molecules in both of systems is negative, indicating that water molecules are easy to combine with the coal surface. The absolute E bin of the CDMW system is 2612.56 kcal/mol lower than that of CMW. The adsorption force of coal molecules to water molecules is weakened, which leads to a decrease in the content of water molecules adsorbed on coal. The results show that the surface hydrophobicity of LRC modified by DD is enhanced, so the proportion of free water in the system increases, which is beneficial to increase the concentration of coal water slurry. The simulation results confirm the experimental results.