AISTech 2019 — Proceedings of the Iron & Steel Technology Conference

6–9 May 2019, Pittsburgh, Pa., USA

DOI 10.1000.377.024

Structural and Textural Characterization of Coke With Optical Image Analysis Software

Eugene Donskoi, Andrei Poliakov and Keith Vining

CSIRO
PO Box 883, Kenmore QLD 4069, Australia Phone:
Email: Eugene.Donskoi@csiro.au

Keywords: Optical, Coke, Characterization, Structure, Texture, IMDC, Iron, Sinter

INTRODUCTION
Metallurgical coke is heavily used in ironmaking and its qualities such as strength, abrasion resistance and reactivity are
highly important for stable blast furnace operation. It has been widely shown that coke structure and texture determine coke
quality [1-7]. An understanding of the connection between coke structure, texture, strength and reactivity and the parent coal
blend gives an insight into the factors affecting coke quality and the possible means for its improvement/optimization during
parent coal blending, sizing, coking and other processing involved in coke production.
Metallurgical coke is highly porous, with its solid part consisting of two major components: Inert Maceral Derived
Components (IMDC) and Reactive Maceral Derived Components (RMDC). In this paper by coke “structure” we mean the
spatial distribution of porosity and the coke matrix, which can be further subdivided into different phases such as IMDC and
RMDC, or alternatively into walls and nodes segmented by structural identification. By the term “texture” we instead
describe the spatial distribution of different isotropic and anisotropic carbon types within the coke, identified using
bireflectance optical imaging [8-10].
To properly characterize coke structure, innovative image acquisition and analysis facilities are necessary. Image acquisition
can use different techniques such as optical, Raman or scanning electron microscopy. To segment carbon types with different
anisotropy, that is, to perform textural characterization, a specialized optical system capable of proper treatment of polarized
light is needed [8-10]. In such systems the orientation of the polarizer in the incident light path can be changed and images
are taken during polarizer step rotation from 0 to 180 degrees. Two measurements are required to uniquely characterize and
classify the varieties of different carbon types: maximum reflectance (Rmax) and bireflectance ([Rmax – Rmin], the
difference between maximum and minimum reflectance.
CSIRO has developed the unique optical image analysis software package Mineral4/Recognition4 [11-13] which is used for
the comprehensive characterization of all major ironmaking commodities: iron ore fines and lumps, sinter, pellets and coke.
Its unique structural characterization of coke [5-7] includes: automated segmentation of the coke matrix into two types of
IMDC (non-fused and partially reacted) and RMDC; segmentation into nodes and walls including their comprehensive
characterization; comprehensive characterization of porosity, including characterization of “Separated pores” and
identification/characterization of “Weak Areas”; and the identification/characterization of IMDC boundaries and their
connection with RMDC.
In order to perform textural characterization of coke, CSIRO Mineral Resources developed a rotating polarizer and the
software to control it within the Mineral4/Recognition4 platform (Figure 1). This allowed for the automated collection of
images from large coke areas under different polarizer angles. Using automated image analysis, Mineral4 creates RMax and
bireflectance maps of the coke studied and, based on them, segments five different major carbon types within coke: isotropic
and fused inerts, and also three types of fused vitrinite (low, medium and high bireflectance). These texturally identified
phases and their relationship with the separately conducted structural identification are fully characterized.

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 237

 (a) (b) (c)
Figure 1. The CSIRO automated system for collection of bireflectance images based on a Zeiss microscope and a motorized
polarizer: a) ZEISS microscope with moving stage; b) rotating polarizer; c) rotating polarizer in working position.
The primary identification of coke phases during structural and textural characterization is assisted by the unique “Textural
Identification” routine developed within Mineral4 (not to be confused with textural coke characterization). This identification
routine can not only segment phases/minerals with different reflectivity but also phases/minerals with the same reflectivity
but different morphology [13-14]. This feature also allows for the improved characterization of iron ores and sinters where
segmentation of different morphologies of the same mineral is often very important. Characterization of iron ore fines and
lumps, sinter and pellets by Mineral4/Recognition4 also will be demonstrated in this article.

STRUCTURAL COKE CHARACTERIZATION IN MINERAL4

The subdivision of coke structure into IMDC, RMDC and porosity creates a simple visual presentation of the coke structure
(Figure 2) which, once properly measured, can also be very informative [6-7] and reveal strong significant correlations with
different coke strength indices. For example, by using structural characterization Donskoi et al. [6-7] confirmed findings by
Kubota et al. [2] that 1.5 mm is the critical size for IMDC affecting coke strength. Donskoi et al. [6-7] analyzed the
dependence of the correlation coefficient between M40 (coke strength index) and the cumulative amount of IMDC down to a
certain IMDC size. Figure 3 uses IMDC size fractions to demonstrate this dependence; the value used for correlation analysis
for a particular IMDC size fraction was the abundance of IMDC greater than or equal to this size, so the value corresponding
to the smallest size fraction was the total abundance of IMDC. Figure 3 demonstrates that the addition of smaller IMDC
increased the correlation coefficient only up to certain a size (i.e. 1229 µm equivalent circle diameter, ECD), after which the
correlation coefficient decreased again. This size can be considered as the IMDC size below which the presence of IMDC
does not have a significant effect on strength. Taking into account that IMDC are not exactly round, this size is in good
agreement with the 1.5 mm determined by the earlier research [2].

238 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.

 (a) (b)
o
Figure 2. a) Image obtained under polarized light (0 ) using a green filter (λ = 546 nm) of coke made from medium rank coal;
b) the structural map corresponding to this image (magenta – not reacted IMDC, blue – partially reacted IMDC, green –
RMDC, yellow – porosity).

Correlation Coefficients between M40 and Cumulative 
amount  of IMDC down to certain size fraction 
IMDC  ECD (µm)
‐0.3
154 217 307 435 615 869 1229 1738 2458
‐0.4
Correlation Coefficient

‐0.5

‐0.6

‐0.7

‐0.8

‐0.9

‐1

Figure 3. Dependence of the correlation coefficient between M40 (AS1038) and the cumulative amount of IMDC down to a
specific IMDC size, expressed in equivalent circle diameter for that size (reproduced from [6]).
Porosity is a very important part of the coke structure and its effect on coke strength has been studied by many authors [1, 3,
4, 15, 16]. Mineral4 enables the user to create a coke porosity map and characterize each pore separately, as well as
separating distinct pockets of the same pore (“Pore Separation”) or, oppositely, removing very fine/weak walls revealing the
so called “Weak Areas”, which helps delineate trends in coke matrix cracking (see Figure 4).

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 239

 (a) (b) (c)

(d) (e)
Figure 4. Porosity Separation procedure: (a) photomicrograph of coke with pore separation lines; (b) unprocessed porosity
color map (in all maps individual pores are marked with different random colors); (c) porosity color map after separation, and
Weak Area processing: (d) walls with a thickness of 4 pixels (~4.25 µm) and less removed; (e) walls with a thickness of 8
pixels (~8.51 µm) and less removed (reproduced from [6]).
Kubota et al. [2] showed that connected pores can cause coke fractures and reported a high negative correlation between the
abundance of pores with low roundness and coke strength index DI150/6. Mineral4 calculates the roundness of each pore and
measures the abundance of pores with different roundness (see Figure 5).

(a) (b)
Figure 5. Identification of porosity with different roundness: a) original fragment of a coke image; b) the corresponding color
map of porosity (red – porosity with roundness less than 0.1, cyan – roundness between 0.1 and 0.2, blue – roundness
between 0.2 and 0.3, yellow – roundness higher than 0.3).

240 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.

Another novel structural approach developed within Mineral4 is the separation of the coke matrix into nodes – i.e. the
relatively thick structures in the matrix which coalesced during the coking process, and walls – i.e. the relatively thin
structures connecting the nodes (see Figure 6). Earlier research attempting to estimate the average wall thickness of the coke
matrix [3, 15, 16] took into account the whole coke matrix during the measurement. That has obvious drawbacks as shown in
Figure 7. Standard wall measurement technique would estimate the wall thickness of the artificial structure shown in Figure
7a at 78.4 in relative units, while for the structure in Figure 7b the wall thickness would be only 46.8. At the same time it is
quite obvious that the second structure is stronger than the first. It can be assumed that the actual strength is determined not
just by the bulk objects in the matrix but more by the connecting structures. Mineral4 allows for the proper identification and
measurement of such “modified” walls. The amount of coke matrix belonging to nodes is also very informative because the
nodes represent large IMDC and the coalesced fusible material not forming the walls. For example, Donskoi et al. [6] found
that the correlation coefficient between the area of nodes and M40 (AS1038) was Cc = -0.926. A number of other parameters
also showing high correlation with different coke strength indices can also be calculated within Mineral4 following this
approach [6]. They include: modified wall thickness, average neck thickness, that is, thickness of the narrowest parts of
modified walls, and specific neck thickness – i.e. the sum of all necks per unit area.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 6. Subdivision of coke matrix area into nodes and walls: a) initial image; b) matrix area map showing nodes (red – the
bulk of nodes, magenta – smaller areas re-identified as nodes), modified walls (white) and discarded objects (green –
unattached node areas, cyan – unattached walls); c) magnified view of the center-to-right area of (b) (reproduced from [6]).

(a) (b)
Figure 7. Schematic presentation of two structures: (a) large nodes, thin walls; b) small nodes, thick walls (reproduced from
[6]).
Such a comprehensive description of coke structure can help to explain unexpected observations. For example, for a set of
cokes made from coals with Ro-max between 0.96% to 1.56% [6] strong positive significant correlations were obtained
between porosity and a set of coke strength indices: M40 (AS1038) (0.922), I40 (0.827), M40 (BS1016) (0.809), DI3015
(0.703) and MCS (0.948) (Figure 8). The dependence was counterintuitive as it meant that higher coke porosity apparently
corresponds to increased coke strength.

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 241

 Scatterplot of M40 (AS1038) vs Porosity Scatterplot of MCS vs Porosity
85.0 65

82.5

60
80.0
M40 (AS1038)

77.5

MCS
55

75.0

72.5 50

70.0

45
45.0 47.5 50.0 52.5 55.0 57.5 35 40 45 50 55
Porosity Porosity

Figure 8. Dependences between porosity and coke strength indices M40 (AS1038) and MCS.
In order to explain this correlation it is important to note that porosity (measured optically) positively correlated with the
amount of vitrinite in the parent coal (see Figure 9a). Also, the roundness of pores increased with the increased amount of
vitrinite in the parent coal, especially in the presence of pore separation processing (the correlation coefficient increased from
0.558 to 0.828 after the separation procedure was applied, see Figure 9b). Donskoi et al. [6, 7] and Kubota [1] demonstrated
that coke strength increased with increasing pore roundness. Parameters such as the ratio of walls to nodes area, “Modified
Wall Thickness” and “Specific Neck Thickness” increased with increasing vitrinite, which apparently resulted in increasing
matrix strength (see Figure 9c, d). Finally, increasing vitrinite means less IMDC, the presence of which negatively affects
coke strength [2, 6]. So it can be concluded that even though the coke porosity increased with increasing vitrinite in the
parent coal, several other related factors, namely increasing pore roundness, increasing wall thickness and quantity, and less
IMDC, all combined to have a positive effect on the coke strength, which overcompensated for the presumed detrimental
effects of increased coke porosity.

Scatterplot of Porosity vs Vitrinite Scatterplot of Separated Pore Roundness vs Vitrinite

60 0.40

0.38
55
Separated Pore Roundness

0.36
50
Porosity

0.34
45

0.32

40
0.30

40 50 60 70 80
40 50 60 70 80
Vitrinite
Vitrinite

(a) (b)

Scatterplot of Wall Area/Node Area vs Vitrinite Scatterplot of Specific Neck Thickness vs Vitrinite
1 .2 0.0024

0.0022
1 .0
Specific Neck Thickness
Wall Area/Node Area

0.0020
0.8
0.001 8
0.6
0.001 6

0.4
0.001 4

0.2 0.001 2

0.0 0.001 0
40 50 60 70 80 40 50 60 70 80
Vitrinite Vitrinite

(c) (d)
Figure 9. Dependences of coke structure parameters on the amount of vitrinite in parent coal blend: a) porosity; b) pore
roundness; c) ratio of wall to node area; d) “Specific Neck Thickness”.

242 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.

 TEXTURAL COKE CHARACTERIZATION IN MINERAL4
While structural characterization does not take into account the coke matrix anisotropy, textural characterization is actually
based on the degree of anisotropy of the individual points of the matrix measured by bireflectance along with their maximum
reflectivity, RMax (not to be confused with RoMax for parent coal).

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Figure 10. Images created by Mineral4 during textural analysis for the coke area shown in Figure 2a: a) RMax image; b)
RMin image; c) bireflectance image; d) the resulting textural map: magenta – isotropic inerts; blue – fused inerts; green,
yellow, cyan – fused vitrinite with high, medium and low bireflectance correspondingly.
Figure 10 shows RMin, RMax, Bireflectance (RMax - RMin) and textural maps corresponding to the image shown in Figure
2a. The caption corresponding to the textural map describes five different phases, however only two are immediately obvious

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 243

to the eye: magenta – isotropic inerts, and cyan – fused vitrinite with low bireflectance. There is not much fused vitrinite with
high and medium bireflectance in this coke and it disseminated very finely, so the entire fused vitrinite area looks cyan (some
green and yellow areas, corresponding to fused vitrinite with high and medium bireflectance, can be found in the top-left
corner). There is no visible fused inert (blue) in this sample.
A comparison of Figure 10d and 2b shows that the structural and textural maps exhibit significant agreement in the
identification of the inert and reacted parts of the coke matrix. However there still are two major differences. The first is that
the structural analysis does not identify the small inerts, mostly fully immersed in fused vitrinite. The second is that structural
identification reports the thin layers of fused vitrinite enveloping isotropic inerts as part of IMDC.
Figure 11 shows a comparison of the abundance of RMDC (from Mineral4 structural identification), the abundance of total
fused vitrinite (from Mineral4 textural identification) and the amount of vitrinite in the parent coal blend (from data supplied
by companies, obtained by petrographic point counting) conducted for an ACARP project [17]. Even though the volume of
the initial vitrinite can change after coking, the high correlation between these three parameters is obvious with the highest
being between fused vitrinite and RMDC (correlation coefficient 0.888). However for coke 25, and particularly for coke 28,
the difference between the reported amount of vitrinite in a parent coal and calculated amounts of the reacted phase in coke
was significant. Visual inspection of images from coke 28 suggested that the amount of inerts in the parent coal was much
lower than reported by point counting. After removing that coke only from the set, correlation coefficients between vitrinite
in the parent coal and fused vitrinite (0.906), and between vitrinite and RMDC (0.927) increased significantly.

Scatterplot of Vitrinite, Fused_Vitrinite, RMDC vs coke number

90 Variable
Vitrinite
Fused_Vitrinite
RMDC
80

70

60
Y-Data

50

40

30

20
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
coke number

Figure 11 Scatterplot of vitrinite abundance in the initial coal blend, fused vitrinite calculated from textural identification and
RMDC calculated from structural characterisation.
Figure 12 shows structural and textural identification of different phases for another coke with a high amount of fused inerts,
and Figure 13 shows a closer view of a small part of the image in Figure 12 (upper-left from the image center). The higher
magnification of Figure 13 enables the presence of fused vitrinite with high and medium bireflectance to be clearly seen,
even though Figure 12 may give the impression that only low bireflectance fused vitrinite (cyan) is present.

244 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.

 (a) (b)

(c) (d)
Figure 12. Images and calculated maps for coke with a high presence of fused inerts: a) image obtained under polarized light
(0°); b) bireflectance image; c) structural identification; d) textural identification (refer to Figure 2 and Figure 10 for color
coding).

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 245

 (a) (b)

(c) (d)
Figure 13. A closer view of a part of the image from Figure 12 (upper-left from the image center): a) image obtained under
polarized light (0o); b) RMax image; c) bireflectance image; d) textural map (refer to Figure 10 for color coding).
For the majority of coke indices their correlations with texturally-identified inert or reactive phase abundances are higher than
for their correlations with structurally-identified phase abundances. For example, for a set consisting of 22 cokes made from
coals with RoMax between 1.13 and 1.56, correlation coefficients of the total abundance of texturally-identified inerts with
I40, DI 30/15, CRI were (-0.921), (-0.828) and (0.573) respectively (Figure 14; note that some indices were not available for
each coke). Correlations coefficients of the total abundance of structurally-identified inerts were (-0.862), (-0.714) and
(0.451) respectively, all of them statistically significant at the 95% level. If isotropic and fused inerts were considered
separately, the correlation coefficients of their abundance with CRI, for example, were (0.740) and (-0.535) respectively. The
explanation is that coke reactivity index has high positive correlation with the abundance of isotropic inert because isotropic
carbon reacts faster than anisotropic carbon represented by fused inerts, which in turn gives a negative correlation with CRI.
Overall inerts abundance gave a positive correlation coefficient (0.573) with CRI due to the fact that the abundance of
isotropic inerts in the majority of cokes was significantly higher than that of fused inerts.
For reference, the research technique has revealed many statistically significant dependences between parent coal
composition, coke properties, and the textural and structural characteristics of the coke matrix, which can help with deepen
the understanding of coke properties and coke structure formation. Readers are encouraged to refer to Donskoi et al. [7, 17]
for full details.

246 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.

 Scatterplot of I40 vs Total_Inerts Scatterplot of DI 30/15 vs Total_Inerts
95.5
62.5

60.0 95.0

57.5
94.5

DI 30/15
55.0
I40

52.5 94.0

50.0
93.5

47.5

93.0
45.0
20 25 30 35 40 45 50 20 30 40 50 60
Total_Inerts Total_Inerts

(a) (b)
Figure 14 Scatterplot of the dependence of a) I40, and b) DI 30/15 with the total abundance of inerts (both isotropic and
fused) determined texturally.
Such a comprehensive characterization of coke structure and texture also allow for the reliable modelling of coke properties
with high predictability. Figure 15 shows a scatterplot of I40 modelled vs I40 measured.

Scatterplot of I40 Measured vs I40 Modelled

62.5

60.0

57.5
I40 Measured

55.0

52.5

50.0

47.5

45.0
45.0 47.5 50.0 52.5 55.0 57.5 60.0 62.5
I40 Modelled

Figure 15. Scatterplot of I40 measured vs I40 modelled.

The model for I40 includes the following predictors: “WallBAbundance” – the abundance of RMDC in the IMDC boundary
layer, “Inert2Ab” – abundance of partially reacted IMDC, “WallsNumber” – the amount of RMDC walls connected with
IMDC grain. The R-sq value is 95.89. All predictors have P-values less than 0.05 (see the model below).

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 247

Regression Equation

I40 = 45.31 + 0.529*WallBAbundance - 1.595*Inert2Ab - 0.0830*WallsNumber

Analysis of Variance

Source DF Adj SS Adj MS F-Value P-Value

Regression 3 285.86 95.286 54.51 0.000
WallBAbundance 1 13.92 13.920 7.96 0.026
Inert2Ab 1 41.84 41.836 23.93 0.002
WallsNumber 1 48.90 48.903 27.97 0.001
Error 7 12.24 1.748
Total 10 298.10

Model Summary

S R-sq R-sq(adj) R-sq(pred)

1.32219 95.89% 94.14% 92.09%

Coefficients

Term Coef SE Coef T-Value P-Value VIF

Constant 45.31 7.08 6.40 0.000
WallBAbundance 0.529 0.187 2.82 0.026 1.05
Inert2Ab -1.595 0.326 -4.89 0.002 1.91
WallsNumber -0.0830 0.0157 -5.29 0.001 1.97

APPLICATION OF MINERAL4/RECOGNITION4 TO CHARACTERIZATION OF IRON ORE, SINTER AND

PELLETS
The Mineral4/Recognition4 package was originally developed for the rapid mineralogical and textural characterization of
iron ore fines [18], providing identification of different minerals and different morphologies. Later its application was
expanded to enable it to characterize other ores, lump ore, coke, different sinters and pellets. Among the major advantages of
Mineral4/Recognition4 are the capability to identify different morphologies of the same mineral/phase and to automatically
classify characterized objects by texture. An understanding of the importance of textural information for the prediction of
downstream processing is steadily increasing among the industry and academics [18, 19]. Together with these capabilities the
Mineral4/Recognition4 software is capable of performing the following functions in automatic, semi-automatic or manual
modes as selected by the user:
• Improved image collection from complex areas and image import from all major formats, including output from
QEMSCAN/MLA or Raman spectroscopy.
• Unsupervised image collection from multiple blocks.
• Stitching of individual images into larger MosaiX images and their further combination into Panorama images
thereby allowing analysis of large areas.
• Image improvement and removal of under-surface reflections.
• Identification of particles and other objects.
• Identification of individual minerals and porosity, including multi-thresholding identification, editing, correction and
cleaning of mineral maps (see Figure 16 for iron ore characterization).
• Automated segmentation of non-opaque minerals.
• Management of unidentified areas.
• Particle separation/joining and mineral-specific correction.
• Removal of unwanted areas and correction of particle and mineral boundaries.
• Measurement of all major mineralogical parameters, including textural characteristics, with data output to a particle
database and Excel.
• Online measurement.
• Unsupervised processing and data output for large sets of data from multiple polished blocks.
• Development of customized ore textural classification schemes for automated ore and gangue classification of
particles of any size up to lump ore. Once a classification scheme has been developed, it can be stored for future use,
edited and extended.
• Filtering of the particle database using complex user-defined criteria.

248 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.

 • Calculation of mineral composition, chemical assay, density, dimensional and textural characteristics for every
particle, as well as liberation class, ore texture class or particle group based on specific mineral, dimensional,
textural or chemical criteria.
• Porosity and mineral grain size characterisation.
• Calculation of mineral liberation and mineral association characteristics for any group of particles.
• Output of results in the form of Microsoft Excel and Word graphs and tables, thereby allowing easy integration of
analysis data into reports.

Figure 16. Iron ore mineral segmentation using Mineral4/Recognition4 (magenta – magnetite, blue – hematite, light green –
vitreous goethite, olive – ochreous goethite, dark green – kaolinite, cyan – quartz, yellow – porosity).
Identification of different morphologies of the same mineral is extremely important in sinter characterization [13, 14]. Some
of the major mineral characteristics of iron ore sinter are the abundances of primary (unreacted) and secondary (derived from
melt) hematite. Standard optical image analysis, which is based on RGB thresholding, is not able to distinguish these phases,
as they consist of the same mineral and so have the same reflectivity. However these two types of hematite in iron ore sinter
have different morphologies recognizable by trained mineralogists, and the Mineral4/Recognition4 software is also capable
of distinguishing them as shown in Figure 17. The situation is similar with segmentation of different types of SFCA (Silico-
Ferrite of Calcium and Aluminum), where the most important are SFCA-I (or fibrous SFCA), columnar SFCA which
displays the texture of relatively large elongated grains, and dense SFCA which has very low porosity and lacks any specific
texture. Segmentation of other sinter minerals such as magnetite, larnite, glass, unreacted fluxes and remnant aluminosilicates
can also be challenging, however Mineral4/Recognition4 successfully addresses all those issues.

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 249

 (a)

(b)
Figure 17. a) A typical image of crushed sinter represented by a MosaiX of 3x3 elementary images; and b) the corresponding
mineral map obtained during automated image analysis (primary hematite – light blue, secondary hematite – dark blue,
magnetite – magenta, Fibrous SFCA-I – light green, columnar + dense SFCA – olive, glass – dark green, soluble
silicates/larnite - cyan, porosity and epoxy within particles – yellow).
In ironmaking very often there is a necessity to characterize relatively large objects with very high magnification, so their
mineralogy, porosity and fine texture are represented in adequate detail, and at the same time the objects can be analyzed as a
whole [20]. Pellets and large lumps of ore and sinter are the typical examples. For that purpose Mineral4/Recognition4
combines the elementary images obtained from a single microscope camera frame on two different levels. Initially, to
average out local irregularities, individual frames obtained at high resolution can be stitched during imaging into larger
MosaiX images. Subsequently, Mineral4/Recognition4 combines these MosaiX images into a single Panorama image of the
whole object. This approach allows for high resolution and comprehensive mineral identification at any point of the object,

250 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.

and at the same time for creation of large-scale mineral/porosity maps and spatial distributions. For symmetrical objects such
as pellets, Mineral4/Recognition4 calculates abundance graphs based on the distance from the center of the pellet.
Figure 18 presents Panorama images of three iron ore magnetite pellets at different stages of induration: 620, 800 and 950oC,
with corresponding mineral maps. It is clear from the images, based on the pinkish color of magnetite and the much whiter
shade of hematite, that during the induration process the degree of oxidation is increasing, as magnetite transfers to hematite
propagating from the edge. Mineral4/Recognition4 enables phase identification, quantification and calculation of their spatial
distributions within the pellet. Figure 19 demonstrates mineral/porosity spatial distributions for the pellet from Figure 18b
(800oC). In this particular example the pellet mineralogy was quite simple: magnetite, hematite and a small amount of flux,
the latter not quite visible in the Panorama images. The actual pellet mineralogy can be much more complex. Figure 20
demonstrates images and corresponding mineral maps of a high basicity (1.3) indurated pellet which shows significant
amounts of SFCA and glass.

620oC 800oC 950oC

(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e) (f)

Figure 18. Panorama images and mineral maps of 3 magnetite pellets at different stages of induration: (a and d) 620oC; (b and
e) 800oC; and (c and f) 950oC. All images built from 21x21 MosaiX (2x2) images taken at magnification x200.

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 251

 (a) (b) (c) (d)
o
Figure 19. Visualization of mineral/porosity spatial distributions for the pellet from Figure 18b (800 C): a) magnetite; b)
hematite; c) porosity; and d) visualization legend.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Figure 20. a) MosaiX image (2x2) from the center of a high basicity pellet; b) the corresponding mineral map (magenta –
magnetite, blue – hematite, green – SFCA, dark brown – gangue, cyan – glass, yellow – porosity); c) a magnified part of
image (a) marked by the white square; d) mineral map corresponding to (c).

CONCLUSIONS
The novel hardware and software package Mineral4/Recognition4 developed by CSIRO allows for the comprehensive
characterization of coke structure and texture. Such characterization enables a more thorough integrated understanding of
dependences between parent coal blend composition, coke structure/texture and coke quality. Such an understanding may

252 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.

provide critical insights for the optimization of parent coal blend preparation and composition as well as for the coking
process.
This article demonstrates novel coke structural and textural characterization methods and descriptors and provides examples
of their capability to explain different phenomena. Utilization of structural identification of IMDC and RMDC enables an
assessment of the critical IMDC size for coke strength. Novel characterization of porosity, subdivision of coke structure into
nodes and walls, and novel descriptors like “Specific Neck Thickness” facilitated an explanation of phenomena where the
majority of coke strength indices were positively correlated to the optically measured porosity. The abundances of fused
material obtained by textural and structural characterization were similar and had a very high correlation with the amount of
vitrinite in the parent coals as reported by petrography.
Even though the texturally obtained abundances of inert or reacted phases more often gave higher correlations with coke
indices than those obtained structurally, the large amount of versatile structural characteristics comprehensively
characterizing the solid part of the coke and porosity allowed a more complete understanding of the connection between coke
structure, coke quality and parent coal composition and thus enabled reliable modelling to be undertaken.
Together with its capabilities to comprehensively characterize iron ore fines, lumps, sinter and pellets,
Mineral4/Recognition4 becomes a universal characterization tool for ironmaking research/industry.

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254 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.