Bezpieczeństwo Pracy i Ochrona Środowiska w Górnictwie Number 02/2013

At the longwall decommissioning stage in hard coal mines there is often an increase of methane and fire hazard. This results in methane explosion hazards. The safeguards in use, e.g. sealing with chemical agents (foams) of the caving debris at the walking shield line, air distribution control, etc., do not assure complete safety from methane explosion. Even the use of inert gases (NO, CO2) cannot guarantee this, since e.g. disturbances in the longwall ventilation system may contribute to changes in the gas make-up of workings and generation of explosive gas mixtures. The only method of safe longwall decommissioning is to employ the technologies based on filling the workings and the passage of the decommissioned longwall with fly ash, followed by reclamation of the decommissioning passage by hydraulic mining or opening a new decommissioning passage which is tangent to the packed passage.

Making the Kyoto Protocol validated Poland obligates itself, among others, to construction the legal base for implementation of elastic mechanisms in the state. As the member of European Union, Poland has at the same time been obliqued to make the construction in accordance with EU regulations (mainly the 2003/87/WE directive), a little different then the regulations of Kyoto Protocol. Linking those different regulations, there has been created complex, but logical and compact legal system in Poland. The comparison of it to the regulations of the protocol and the directive illustrates how the international treaties influence the shape of the state regulations.

This article presents modern extinguishing agents, namely aerosols. The paper demonstrates the extinguishing mechanism, the advantages and drawbacks of aerosols and a selection of practical applications. The description is complemented by the results of extinguishing tests carried out at the Central Mining Rescue Station which confirm the fitness of aerosols for use in mining facilities.