ECOAL project: delivering solutions for integrated monitoring of coal-related fires supported on optical fiber sensing technology

The combustion of coal wastes resulting from mining is of particular environmental concern, and the importance of proper management involving real-time assessment of their status and identification of probable evolution scenarios is recognized. Continuous monitoring of the combustion temperature and emission levels of certain gases allows for the possibility of planning corrective actions to minimize their negative impact on the surroundings. Optical fiber technology is well suited to this purpose and here we describe the main attributes and results obtained from a fiber optic sensing system projected to gather data on distributed temperature and gas emissions in these harsh environments. ; This work was supported by the project ECOAL—MGT—SOE3/P2/P714, Ecological Management of Coal Waste Piles in Combustion, SUDOE—Interreg IV B. The author Joana Ribeiro benefited from a post-doctoral scholarship financed by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation, FCT (Ref: SFRH/BPD/76230/2011). The authors acknowledge the funding provided by the Institute of Earth Sciences under contracts UID/GEO/04683/2013 with FCT and COMPETE POCI-01-0145-FEDER, and also by the Spanish Ministry of Economy via project TEC2013-47264-C2-2-R. The work of Sonia Martín-Lopez was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through a “Ramón y Cajal” Contract. Miguel González Herráez acknowledges the support of the European Research Council through Starting Grant U-FINE (Grant No. 307441).