Fourier Transform Infrared data analysis to analyse the environmental impact of coal mine waste

In the current energy transition, many governments have made plans to reduce energy production by coal. Therefore, Germany has set the ambition to close coal mines in 2030 (Wehrmann et al., 2021). The many years of mining produced a large amount of mine waste, used as a landfill. In the TRIM4mining project, a consortium of industry and academia investigate the environmental impact of coal mine waste. The samples used for this study are from the Schleenhein and Profen lignite mines in East Germany. Throughout the project, various samples were collected of specific lithologies in the mine, lithology mixtures and two drill cores of 50 meters drilled on the mine waste dump.

This study focuses on testing the applicability of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) for analysing lignite waste material samples. Here, the data is discussed regarding the liquefaction potential, acidification potential, secondary recovery, and heavy metal concentration. An additional abstract is submitted to present the result on how FTIR data can be used for regression modelling with the aim to integrate geochemistry and spectral infrared data for mine waste characterization.  

Preliminary results have shown clear spectral features that can be used to distinguish coal, silt, sand and clay material. Every meter of the waste material is measured to allow a core logging analysis. Besides the interpretation of the coal, clay, sand and silt fraction, various data analysis techniques are applied to interpret smaller variations in the FTIR data, that could be of interest to the environmental impact of coal mine waste.