Down the mine
Peter Borrows takes us on another excursion into local chemistry
While not everybody has a coal mine at the end of the road, there are many disused mines around the UK, and a recent visit to the Big Pit (Pwll Mawr) at Blaenafon, part of the World Heritage Site, confirmed just how much chemistry there is here.
Explosive chemistry
I immediately noticed that water running down the side of the underground roadways was red-orange with iron oxide. This is not surprising given that the nearby ironworks, also part of the World Heritage Site, was set up in the late 18th century to exploit the local mineral resources - coal, limestone and iron ore.
Coal is largely a mixture of complex hydrocarbons. Miners have always feared 'fire damp' (methane), which is trapped in coal and released as the coal is broken up and mined. The word 'damp' comes from the German dampf, meaning vapour or steam. Mixtures with air are explosive with between five and 15 per cent methane. Thus explosions were common when candles were the source of light in the mines.
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