Hower reported in 2012 that fly ash is composed of inorganic and organic constituents, either neoformed in the boiler or flue gas from melting minerals of the charring or thermoplastic transitions in coal, primarily vitrinite, or inherited from the coal or auxiliary fuel. Chemical analyses alone are not sufficient to fully describe the complexity of fly ash. For example, the forms of carbons and their relationship to the inorganic fly ash constituents; the burnout of coal and non-coal carbons; and the efficiency of combustion, can all be described by petrographic studies of fly ash.
Coal-combustion fly ash is composed of inorganic and organic constituents either newly formed in the boiler or flue gas or carried over from the coal or auxiliary fuel. The petrographic examination of fly ash can provide details unobtainable from bulk chemical analyses, such as the forms of carbons and their relationship to the inorganic fly ash constituents, important in the capture of Hg by fly ash carbons; the burnout of coal and non-coal carbons; and the efficiency of combustion, determined in part from the amount and size of carbons, including incompletely burned coal, and rock fragments.
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