The difference between the three coal brothers (thermal coal, coking coal and coke) lies in the different raw materials. Power coal is a kind of coal used as power raw material, and coking coal is a kind of bituminous coal with caking property. The raw materials of coke produced are all called coking coal, and coke is extracted from coking coal.

Thermal coal in a narrow sense is coal for thermal power generation, and its volatile matter and calorific value are not as high as coking coal. According to the classification standard of coal, coking coal and gas coal in bituminous coal are both called coking coal. Coking coal is mainly used for coke, mainly for calcium carbide coke and metallurgical coke.

Application of coking coal

There are many kinds of coking coal, but their distribution is uneven. Among them, gas coal and 1/3 coking coal account for a large proportion in the identified coking coal resources, while coking coal and fat coal are the main varieties of coking coal, but the proportion is small.

Under the condition of air isolation, the bituminous coal is heated to 950- 1050℃, dried, pyrolyzed, melted, bonded, solidified and shrunk, and finally coke is made. This process is called high temperature coking (high temperature dry distillation).

Coking coal is mainly used in blast furnace ironmaking and smelting of nonferrous metals such as copper, lead, zinc, titanium, antimony and mercury, and plays the role of reducing agent, heating agent and material column skeleton. Using coking coal instead of charcoal in ironmaking blast furnace has laid the foundation for large-scale modern blast furnace, which is a major milestone in metallurgical history.