Auro View 2000 - An Optical Image Processing System in Rank and Grade Analysis of Coal

Rank and grade analysis of coal plays an important role in its use in different industries like thermal power plants and/or steel industries. Petrographically, coal is evaluated on the basis of its relative abundance of microscopic constituents that ultimately influence its reactivity, heat value, ash content, agglutinating characteristics and inflammability. Rank is a maturity characteristic of coal, measured on the basis of reflectance values usually of a particular organic constituent called vitrinite.

Using the optical image processing system called AuroView 2000, the microscope images of a coal sample are acquired through a computer undet normal incident light as well as under fluorescent light. The image under normal incident light is a black and white (b/w), whereas the image under fluorescent light is coloured. From these images, important groups of microscopic components called mineral matter, vitrinite, liptinite and inertinite are classified.

The AuroView 2000 software has two modules viz. analysis module and prediction module. The analysis module is capable of producing modal percentages of macerals and mineral matter, and can measure mean max R₀, V-type distribution (reflectance) automatically or manually under this set up without any MPV attachment. In fact, it converts light intensity values (the grey levels) to a calibrated reflectance scale. The prediction module can predict ash content (%), V.M. on dmmf basis and elemental carbon on pure coal basis. Finally, it can predict the rank and grade of coal as per Indian Bureau of Standards nomenclature.