Quantitative characterization of coal structure by high-resolution CP/MAS 13C solid-state NMR spectroscopy

Abstract A method for quantitatively characterizing the carbon skeletal structure of coal by variable contact time experiment using high-resolution CP/MAS 13C solid-state NMR spectroscopy is proposed in this paper. The initial polarization transfer intensity from protons directly bonded with carbons, instead of dipolar-dephasing techniques which had to run on a lower frequency NMR spectrometer (100.02 MHz for proton), was used to divide the bridgehead and protonated aromatic carbons, making all the NMR data in this paper obtained on a high frequency NMR spectrometer (500.12 MHz for proton). On this basis, the fractions of different carbons in coal were further divided by the initial polarization transfer intensity from spin diffusion of protons unbonded with carbons. The structure of Naomaohu coal, a subbituminous coal from China, was measured. The change of polarization transfer with contact time was analyzed quantitatively. The fractions of aromatic, aliphatic, carboxyl and carbonyl carbons, and corrective aromaticity are 0.61, 0.39, 0.1 and 0.51, respectively. The fractions of protonated and bridgehead aromatic carbons are 0.22 and 0.09, respectively. These results agreed with literatures, and bond concentration calculated by the carbon skeletal structure distribution of coal was reasonable.