COAL UTILIZATION

combustion of coal or its conversion into useful solid, gaseous, and liquid products. By far the most important use of coal is in combustion, mainly to provide heat to the boilers of electric power plants. Metallurgical coke is the major product of coal conversion. In addition, techniques for gasifying and liquefying coal into fuels or into feedstocks for the chemical industry are well developed, but their commercial viability depends on the availability and price of the competing fossil fuels, petroleum and natural gas. Additional reading Harold H. Schobert, Coal, the Energy Source of the Past and the Future (1987), provides a good nontechnical introduction to coal for a reader with little or no chemical background; it also provides an understanding of the role that coal has played in society from ancient times to the present. N. Berkowitz, An Introduction to Coal Technology, 2nd ed. (1993), is useful for a reader learning about coal for the first time. James G. Speight, The Chemistry and Technology of Coal (1983), an introductory textbook, deals with geology, petrography, chemistry, and utilization technology. D.W. van Krevelen, Coal: Typology, Chemistry, Physics, Constitution (1961, reprinted 1981), although older, is still a good reference book on coal structure and science. D. Merrick, Coal Combustion and Conversion Technology (1984), offers a comprehensive guide to coal-utilization technology for engineers, planners, and policy makers and is especially good on fluidized-bed combustion. Other works discussing coal utilization include Martin A. Elliot (ed.), Chemistry of Coal Utilization: Second Supplementary Volume (1981), a monumental and exhaustive reference book with a good review of fundamentals and utilization processes up to the late 1970s; H.-D. Schilling, B. Bonn, and U. Krauss, Coal Gasification: Existing Processes and New Developments, 2nd rev. ed. (1981; originally published in German, 2nd rev. ed., 1979), a comprehensive collection; G.J. Pitt and G.R. Millward (eds.), Coal and Modern Coal Processing: An Introduction (1979); Perry Nowacki, Coal Liquefaction Processes (1979), a systematic discussion; and C.y. Wen and E. Stanley Lee (eds.), Coal Conversion Technology (1979), a good graduate-level textbook, with descriptions of processes. Alan W. Scaroni Sarma V.L.N. Pisupati