Trace Elements in West Virginia Coals

Cerium (Ce) Summary Statistics

Histogram of cerium (Ce) content, in ppm on a whole coal basis, in West Virginia coal samples (larger version) — Select the histogram to open a larger version.

The histogram of cerium abundances in all West Virginia coal beds shows a skewed distribution with a mean of 16.88 ppm (± 10.00 ppm) on a whole coal basis. The maximum Ce content of 95 ppm was in a bench of the Coalburg coal. Cerium is a major component of the mineral monazite, (Ce, La, Y, Th)PO₄, and the highest correlations were with elements in monazite, mainly lanthanum (La) and thorium (Th) and less so with yttrium (Y). Also neodymium (Nd), dysprosium (Dy) (r = +0.6740) and gadolinium (Gd) (r = +0.5625) were measured in low abundances in most monazite grains in West Virginia coals using SEM at the WVGES. Cerium also correlated with other rare earth elements, such as samarium (Sm), europium (Eu), ytterbium (Yb), lutetium (Lu) and terbium (Tb) on a whole coal basis. Probably because monazite is a detrital mineral in coal, cerium also correlated somewhat with ash yield, and the ash related elements chromium (Cr), scandium (Sc), hafnium (Hf), lithium (Li), tantalum (Ta), vanadium (V) and lead (Pb).

Spearman Correlation Coefficients (r) with Cerium
Ash Yield	La	Sm	Th	Eu	Cr	Sc	Hf
+0.6875	+0.9569	+0.8909	+0.8880	+0.8838	+0.8510	+0.8137	+0.8082
n = 546	n = 540	n = 538	n = 530	n = 540	n = 545	n = 546	n = 509

Li	Ta	Yb	Lu	V	Pb	Nd	Tb
+0.7794	+0.7757	+0.7387	+0.7278	+0.7230	+0.7200	+0.7192	+0.7074
n = 546	n = 462	n = 542	n = 503	n = 545	n = 543	n = 416	n = 493

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Page content last revised: March 1, 2002