Coal is a fairly "dirty" fuel and contains large amounts of
many inorganic elements. At the same time, there are wide
variations in the trace elements content of coal seams even
within a single mine. Hence, it is important to have reliable
analytical methods which can monitor the inorganic con-
stituents at various stages of coal production and utilization.
Since as many elements as possible need to be monitored in
the coal products, it is desirable to have multielement rather
than single element techniques.