Introduction to Macerals

The macerals of all coals can be usually assigned to three maceral groups  

The macerals themselves can either occur as bulk or matrix material or as inclusions. The bulk of the maceral phase is composed of huminite in the case of hgnite or vitrinite in the case of hard coal. Inertinite and liptinite are typically found as additions of minor proportions. 

From an engineering point of view, the most interesting property of the maceral groups is their degree of reflectance toward incident light This kind of analysis permits the determination of numerical values from otherwise hard to interpret microscope images [2,3]. 

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