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Unlocking Coal Gas from Interactions: Promoting Safe and Efficient Resources Recovery

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Resources and Sustainable Utilization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 August 2023) | Viewed by 5582

Special Issue Editors

School of Low-Carbon Energy and Power Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
Interests: gas extraction; coal spontaneous combustion and its prevention; coupling modelling
School of mechanics and civil engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
Interests: rock mechanics; fault reactivation; THMC coupling modelling; hydraulic fracturing; EGS development
State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control, Chongqing University, Chongqing 40044, China
Interests: rock mechanics; fault reactivation; THMC coupling modelling; hydraulic fracturing; EGS development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia
Interests: mining engineering; mine ventilation; rock mechanics; mine safety; low-emission technologies

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Advances in our understanding of coal–gas interactions have stimulated the design of effective measures to retard or suppress coal–gas disasters and enhance potential resource utilization. Coal–gas disasters pose difficult, persistent and costly problems to the coal mining industry worldwide, resulting in casualties, perilous land subsidence and massive environmental contamination. Coal–gas disasters include coal–gas outbursts, spontaneous coal combustion and even gas explosion, among other consequences. Coalbed methane is also an important energy resource. A fundamental understanding of coal–gas interactions is essential to eliminating their potential risks as mining hazards and to invest in their potential as an unconventional gas resource.

Coal-gas interactions are a chain of physicochemical reactions in coal reservoirs, labeled as “coupled processes”, implying that one reaction process affects the initiation and progress of others. This reaction chain is linked through dominant mechanisms, including compositional gas flow and diffusion, reaction kinetics, energy transport and coal deformation. Each individual process, in the absence of cross couplings, forms the basis of well-known disciplines, such as hydrology, chemistry, elasticity and heat transfer. Such interactions have been investigated through experiments and numerical simulations, but their mechanisms in multiscale and multifield couplings remain obscure. Bridging this knowledge gap could have a critical impact on enhancing mining safety, utilizing the potential of gas resource recovery and reducing its associated environmental risks.

This Special Issue, “Unlocking Coal Gas from Interactions: Promoting Safe and Efficient Resources Recovery ”, will focus on the impact of coal–gas interactions on flow behaviours and safe and efficient resource recovery. It will serve as a platform for international researchers from different disciplines to exchange knowledge and innovative solutions and to explore emerging technologies in key areas of coal and gas exploitation. This Special Issue welcomes the submission of relevant research papers.

The presented papers will present a diversity of new theories, experiments and engineering practices in coal–gas resource recovery as it relates to fluid flow. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Physical behaviour of natural gas flow in coal
  • Gas–water–coal interactions in coal
  • The role of fluids in enhanced gas recovery;
  • Impact of macro- and micro-scale coal structure on gas flow;
  • Geomechanics in coal gas extraction;
  • Thermal impact on gas–rock interactions in coal;
  • High-efficiency methods and technology increasing permeability of coal seam;
  • Theory and technology of efficient development and utilization of coal gas resources;
  • Gas accumulation and migration mechanisms in abandoned mines.

Dr. Tongqiang Xia
Prof. Dr. Jianguo Wang
Prof. Dr. Quan Gan
Dr. Guangyao Si
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • gas flow
  • coal spontaneous combustion
  • coal-gas interactions
  • coal permeability

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 2446 KiB  
Article
Ensemble Learning Based Sustainable Approach to Carbonate Reservoirs Permeability Prediction
by Dhiaa A. Musleh, Sunday O. Olatunji, Abdulmalek A. Almajed, Ayman S. Alghamdi, Bassam K. Alamoudi, Fahad S. Almousa, Rayan A. Aleid, Saeed K. Alamoudi, Farmanullah Jan, Khansa A. Al-Mofeez and Atta Rahman
Sustainability 2023, 15(19), 14403; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151914403 - 30 Sep 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1001
Abstract
Permeability is a crucial property that can be used to indicate whether a material can hold fluids or not. Predicting the permeability of carbonate reservoirs is always a challenging and expensive task while using traditional techniques. Traditional methods often demand a significant amount [...] Read more.
Permeability is a crucial property that can be used to indicate whether a material can hold fluids or not. Predicting the permeability of carbonate reservoirs is always a challenging and expensive task while using traditional techniques. Traditional methods often demand a significant amount of time, resources, and manpower, which are sometimes beyond the limitations of under developing countries. However, predicting permeability with precision is crucial to characterize hydrocarbon deposits and explore oil and gas successfully. To contribute to this regard, the current study offers some permeability prediction models centered around ensemble machine learning techniques, e.g., the gradient boost (GB), random forest (RF), and a few others. In this regard, the prediction accuracy of these schemes has significantly been enhanced using feature selection and ensemble techniques. Importantly, the authors utilized actual industrial datasets in this study while evaluating the proposed models. These datasets were gathered from five different oil wells (OWL) in the Middle Eastern region when a petroleum exploration campaign was conducted. After carrying out exhaustive simulations on these datasets using ensemble learning schemes, with proper tuning of the hyperparameters, the resultant models achieved very promising results. Among the numerous tested models, the GB- and RF-based algorithms offered relatively better performance in terms of root means square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and coefficient of determination (R2) while predicting permeability of the carbonate reservoirs. The study can potentially be helpful for the oil and gas industry in terms of permeability prediction in carbonate reservoirs. Full article
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15 pages, 5268 KiB  
Article
Study on Formation Mechanism of Pre-stressed Anchor Pressure Arch Based on Safe Co-Mining of Deep Coal and Gas
by Deyi Wu, Nanyu Li, Menghan Hu and Hanghang Liu
Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3004; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043004 - 07 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1020
Abstract
It is challenging to assure safe and effective gas mining due to the surrounding soft coal rock and rock roads in deep and high gas mines being extremely loose and broken. One of the effective ways is to arrange pre-stressed anchors in a [...] Read more.
It is challenging to assure safe and effective gas mining due to the surrounding soft coal rock and rock roads in deep and high gas mines being extremely loose and broken. One of the effective ways is to arrange pre-stressed anchors in a certain area of the roadway surrounding rocks to form a compression arch with the joint action of anchors and surrounding rocks, but due to the lack of in-depth systematic research on the formation mechanism of the compression arch, the effect is difficult to give full play. The typical microstructure of deep soft coal and rock was observed by the borehole camera method, and the mechanical performance parameters were measured in the laboratory. The distribution characteristics of different bolt spacing, bolt pre-tightening force, and bolt length along the bolt arrangement direction and the additional compressive stress on the surface of the straight wall of a semi-circular arch deep soft coal and rock roadway were numerically simulated and analyzed. According to the uniform distribution range and size of the small fluctuation of the additional compressive stress inside the coal and rock, the distribution and size of the additional compressive stress on the surface of the straight wall and the effective superposition of the additional compressive stress, and the thickness and strength of the compression arch of the deep coal and rock preload bolt were analyzed, and the reasonable parameters of the pre-stressed bolt were determined. The results show that bolt spacing, pre-tightening force, and bolt length significantly affect the thickness and strength of the compression arch. The reasonable spacing of the pre-stressed bolt was a × b = 600 mm × 600 mm~400 mm × 400 mm, the pre-stressed bolt pre-tightening force was F = 50~90 kN, the length of the pre-stressed bolt was L = 1500~2000 mm, the strength of compression arch was Δσc = −1.480~−1.589 MPa, and the thickness of the compression arch was m = −266.67~−533.33 mm. Full article
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10 pages, 2710 KiB  
Article
Study on Permeability Characteristics of Gas Bearing Coal under Cyclic Load
by Junhua Xue, Kehan Li and Yu Shi
Sustainability 2022, 14(18), 11483; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141811483 - 13 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1025
Abstract
With the depletion of shallow coal mine resources, the mining depth of coal mines is deepening year by year, therefore, gas explosion and other disasters occur from time to time. Gas drainage is the main measure to prevent gas disasters, and the permeability [...] Read more.
With the depletion of shallow coal mine resources, the mining depth of coal mines is deepening year by year, therefore, gas explosion and other disasters occur from time to time. Gas drainage is the main measure to prevent gas disasters, and the permeability of coal is one of the main factors affecting gas drainage. In order to explore the seepage characteristics of coal under different confining pressure loading and unloading conditions and different gas pressure, the seepage test of raw coal samples was carried out by using the coal rock triaxial loading seepage test device. The results show that the permeability of coal samples decreases with the increase of confining pressure in the loading stage, and increases with the unloading of confining pressure in the unloading stage; Through calculation, it is found that the permeability loss of coal body in the loading stage decreases with the increase of loading times, and during unloading, this value also decreases with the increase of unloading times, and reaches the maximum value at the first loading and unloading. With the increase of loading and unloading cycles, the permeability loss of coal samples decreases, and the first loading and unloading is the main stage of permeability loss of coal samples. At the same time, it is found that when the confining pressure increases, the permeability loss of coal samples decreases, and the initial permeability of coal samples maintains a good linear growth relationship with the increase of gas pressure. Full article
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16 pages, 2747 KiB  
Article
Adaptive Control Strategy and Model of Gas-Drainage Parameters in Coal Seam
by Tongqiang Xia, Jianhang Lu, Zilong Li, Hongfei Duan, Hongyun Ren, Zhuangzhuang Zhang and Yantai Zhang
Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9247; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159247 - 28 Jul 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1320
Abstract
For a long time, the serious mismatch between negative pressure and drainage parameters of underground gas drainage has been the main reason for the standing engineering problems in coal mines, such as low gas drainage concentration, fast decay, and low-utilization rate. Aiming at [...] Read more.
For a long time, the serious mismatch between negative pressure and drainage parameters of underground gas drainage has been the main reason for the standing engineering problems in coal mines, such as low gas drainage concentration, fast decay, and low-utilization rate. Aiming at these problems, an innovative method by adding micro-frequency conversion drainage pumps and electronically controlled valves at the key nodes of the conventional pipe network system of gas drainage and the joint quantitative regulation of underground regulation facilities and surface drainage pumps based on the intrinsic correlation between the drainage parameters and negative pressure is proposed in this paper to solve the difficulty of how to regulate increasing pressure or resistance in the on-site gas-drainage system and to realize energy matching in the whole drainage system on demand. For this method, the study further defines the safety and efficiency criteria of gas drainage, proposes the adaptive control strategy of gas-drainage parameters, and establishes the adaptive control model based on particle swarm optimization. The model took the safety and efficiency criteria of gas drainage as the constraint conditions and the maximum gas-drainage flow or concentration as the objective function to adaptively adjust the operating conditions of drainage pumps, micro-frequency conversion drainage pumps, and electric control valves to realize the adaptive regulation of gas-drainage parameters. Finally, based on the adaptive control strategy and model of gas-drainage parameters, the numerical simulation research was carried out through Comsol with Matlab. The results show that the gas-drainage concentration and high-concentration drainage period can be increased many times, and the adaptive drainage parameters of valves and micro pumps can be adjusted intelligently, which provides a theoretical basis for the intelligent field implementation of gas. Full article
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