Question

What is the percentage of free carbon in anthracite?
(A) 30
(B) 60
(C) 90
(D) 95

Answer 1

Hint: Anthracite is also called as hard coal which is having a submetallic lustre. It is found that Anthracite is having the highest carbon content and energy density of all types of coal.

Complete step by step solution:
- Anthracite is found to be the most metamorphosed type of coal.
- It found that in this the carbon content is between 92% and 98%. Anthracite found to ignite with some difficulty and also burns with a blue coloured, smokeless and short flame.
- It is also seen that Anthracite differs from normal bituminous coal, as it is having a greater hardness, more density.
- It contains a low percentage of volatile matter very high percentage of fixed carbon.
- Anthracites generally costs two or three times more than that of regular coal and is the highest-ranking of coals.
- The main use of Anthracite today is that it is used as a domestic fuel in automatic stoker furnaces or in the hand-fired stoves. It basically delivers high energy and also burns with a little amount of soot, which makes it ideal for this purpose.

Hence, we can conclude that the correct option is (D), that is the percentage of free carbon in anthracite is 95%.

Note: We can say that Anthracite is better than other coal-like bituminous and lignite, from a point of view of performance and heating. It is also found to have fewest impurities with high carbon content.