The research status and prospect of coal-based graphite in China

Coal-based graphite is regarded as a special and non-typical crystalline mineral and belongs to amorphous graphite, which is both the important part of graphite resources and also one of parts of coal measures mineral resources. Coal and coal-based graphite are two different mineral resources which occur at the same place. The graphitization of coal essentially show carbon enrichement and hydrogen and oxygen exclusion in elementary composition and increase of structural ordering degree and the formation of graphite crystals. Coal macerals, magmatic intrusion and geological structure are all critical factors for coal graphitization, which present different characteristics under the influence of multiple factors. Based on the research of the graphitization mechanism, the identification system for coal-based graphite, including the basic index of chemical parameters and the precise index of structural parameters was presented; in view of the demand of resource assessment, the coal-based graphite with different graphitization degree was separately divided into three grades as grade-I(coal-based graphite), grade-II(semi-graphite) and grade-III(graphitized anthracite). The formation and distribution of coal-based graphite is closely related to the magmatic intrusions and compressional tectonic environment, which shows characteristics of direction, degradation and centralized mineralization in belt. The coal-based graphite metallogenic regions show one vertical and three horizontal patterns, including the circum Pacific metallogenic region, Nanling metallogenic region, Qinling-Dabie metallogenic region, Yinshan-Yanshan metallogenic region and nine metallogenic belts. The research status of coal-based graphite in China was analyzed, the result shows that there are enormous potential resources in China based on the abundant coal resources and the intense influence of tectonic and magmatic thermal in several coal bearing areas. The development and application of coal-based graphite has important sense to strengthen the strategic guarantee ability of graphite resources, promote the rational exploitation and utilization of coal series resources and promote the transformation and upgrading of coal enterprises. The problems of exploitation and utilization of coal-based graphite were analyzed and corresponding policies and suggestions were presented.