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Sustainable Development of the Coal Industry: Process Safety and Environmental...
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Sustainable Development of the Coal Industry: Process Safety and Environmental Protection

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Process Safety and Risk Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 March 2027 | Viewed by 410

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Zhigang Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Safety and Emergency Management and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Interests: theories and technologies for enhanced recovery; development and utilization of coalbed methane; technologies for green; safe and efficient coal mining and disaster prevention and control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Hongwei Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Safety and Emergency Management and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Interests: pillarless mining; mine ventilation; prevention and control of composite disasters caused by mine gas and coal spontaneous combustion
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to announce a new Special Issue, titled "Sustainable Development of the Coal Industry: Process Safety and Environmental Protection", for the journal Processes.

As a key component of the global energy system, the coal industry faces prominent challenges in process safety and environmental protection, which have become critical bottlenecks restricting its sustainable development worldwide.

This Special Issue covers environmental protection, low-carbon technologies, and interdisciplinary system engineering. Centered on synergizing safety and environmental protection to boost the sustainable development of the coal industry, it aims to provide an academic platform for bridging research gaps and promoting the safe, green, and sustainable growth of the global coal sector.

For this Special Issue, we cordially welcome the submission of high-quality original research papers and review articles. Relevant research areas include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Theories and engineering practices of green coal mining;
  • Coal mine environmental protection and ecological restoration;
  • Theories and technologies of coal mine disaster prevention and control;
  • Coal seam geological exploration and resource evaluation;
  • Intelligent monitoring technologies in coal production processes;
  • Coal mine safety supervision and management systems;
  • Research on coal mine laws, regulations and sustainable development policies;
  • Application of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies in coal seams;
  • Low-carbon, energy-saving and emission-reduction technologies in the coal industry;
  • Evaluation systems and decision-making methods for sustainable coal mining.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Sustainability.

Dr. Zhigang Li
Dr. Hongwei Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable development of the coal industry
  • coal mine process safety
  • coal mine environmental protection
  • green coal mining
  • CCUS
  • low-carbon transition

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

30 pages, 5410 KB  
Article
Coal Pillar Width Determination and Roof Full-Cable Support Technology for Gob-Side Entry Driving in Extra-Thick Coal Seams
by Yu Kang, Baisheng Zhang, Dong Duan, Shuaiyou Ji, Zhechong Liang and Longbo Du
Processes 2026, 14(10), 1628; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr14101628 - 18 May 2026
Abstract
To determine a reasonable coal pillar width for gob-side entry driving in extra-thick coal seams and improve roof control under thick top-coal conditions, the No. 50604 return airway of Ti’an Coal Mine was selected as the engineering case. A combined approach involving theoretical [...] Read more.
To determine a reasonable coal pillar width for gob-side entry driving in extra-thick coal seams and improve roof control under thick top-coal conditions, the No. 50604 return airway of Ti’an Coal Mine was selected as the engineering case. A combined approach involving theoretical calculation, numerical simulation, and field monitoring was adopted. Based on limit equilibrium theory and a modified Kastner formula for rectangular roadways, the reasonable coal pillar width was determined to be 7.13~8.42 m. Sensitivity analysis showed that the calculated width was sensitive to the stress concentration and lateral pressure coefficients. FLAC3D simulations compared the plastic zone and deformation of the gob-side entry under different pillar widths, and 8 m was determined as the reasonable width. Mining-stage simulations indicated that the plastic failure range and deformation increased markedly within 5~10 m ahead of the working face. A roof full-cable deep–shallow collaborative support system was proposed, and reasonable roof support parameters were determined through orthogonal numerical simulation and multi-index evaluation. Field monitoring showed that roadway deformation remained controllable during excavation and mining, verifying the rationality of the 8 m narrow pillar and roof full-cable support parameters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development of the Coal Industry: Process Safety and Environmental Protection)
20 pages, 103797 KB  
Article
Effect of Confining Pressure on the Damage Evolution Process of Coal with Boreholes Under Graded Cyclic Loading–Unloading
by Xiaojing Feng, Shutong Guo, Dong Duan, Weiheng Guo, Zhiduo Fu and Minggang Chang
Processes 2026, 14(10), 1517; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr14101517 - 8 May 2026
Viewed by 220
Abstract
During underground mining, the stability of in-seam gas drainage boreholes is jointly affected by multiple factors, including the in situ stress state and borehole structure. Borehole instability can reduce gas drainage efficiency and increase underground safety risks. Among these factors, confining pressure plays [...] Read more.
During underground mining, the stability of in-seam gas drainage boreholes is jointly affected by multiple factors, including the in situ stress state and borehole structure. Borehole instability can reduce gas drainage efficiency and increase underground safety risks. Among these factors, confining pressure plays a decisive role in the damage evolution of the coal surrounding the borehole. To clarify the damage evolution characteristics of the coal surrounding the borehole under different confining pressure conditions, conventional triaxial graded cyclic loading–unloading numerical simulations were conducted on borehole-containing specimens using PFC2D software (version 6.0). The effects of confining pressure on acoustic emission (AE) ringing counts, microcrack propagation, crack angle distribution, damage evolution, and failure characteristics were systematically analyzed. The results show that, under graded cyclic loading–unloading, the peak AE ringing count of the borehole-containing specimens first increases and then decreases with increasing confining pressure, whereas the cumulative ringing count continues to increase. The spatial distribution of microcracks gradually evolves from dispersed development to concentration around the borehole, and the crack propagation path changes from single-path dominance to coordinated multi-path propagation. The angular distribution of tensile cracks exhibits a non-monotonic evolution pattern, namely, dispersion, concentration, and weakening, with increasing confining pressure, whereas the distributions of shear cracks and total cracks show a gradually broadened unimodal pattern with enhanced connectivity between angular intervals. At the final failure stage, both the tensile damage ratio and the shear damage ratio increase with increasing confining pressure, and their difference increases from 0.24% to 0.90%, indicating that increasing confining pressure further strengthens the dominant role of shear damage. The failure mode gradually evolves from tensile–shear mixed failure toward relatively shear-dominated failure. The results provide a theoretical basis for analyzing borehole instability and failure characteristics under different confining pressure conditions, as well as for optimizing grouting-based borehole protection parameters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development of the Coal Industry: Process Safety and Environmental Protection)
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