HUMIC ACIDS FROM SUBBITUMINOUS COAL -
A STUDY OF CONTROLLEDDRY OXIDATION
N. Berkowitz, E. J. Jensen and N. Melnyk
Research Council of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
During the past few years, advances in humic acid chemistry have
made it increasingly clear that humic acids offer an interesting and fairly direct
route to large-scale chemical utilization of coal, and several commercial products
containing (or derived from) them are, in fact, already being marketed (1,2,3).
Despite this progress, however, processes by which humic acids form from and
in coal are, like theic detailed structure, still only &completely understood and
merit further investigation.