Characteristics and genomic mechanism of Absidia spinosa in inhibiting coal spontaneous combustion

Abstract

Early prevention and control of coal spontaneous combustion have emerged as a critical research area in coal mine safety. Due to their sustainability and environmental friendliness, microorganisms have gained attention. A filamentous fungus was collected in the coal mine and identified as Absidia spinosa. Results indicated that the mycelium effectively covered and repaired many coal pores. The oxygen consumption ratio of A. spinosa was higher in coal-containing environments than in coal-free conditions. The fungus significantly impacted aliphatic functional groups, disrupting bridging bonds and side chains connected to aromatic structures and reducing the relative content of C-O bonds. Additionally, A. spinosa increases the ignition temperature by 25.34 °C. The total heat release was decreased by approximately 32.58 %, and the activation energies were increased. The genome of Absidia spinosa revealed genes related to oxygen consumption, small molecule degradation, and secretion of metabolic products, such as those annotated under GO ID: 0140657, etc. The pathways involved in the degradation of small organic molecules (e.g., ko00626, etc.), carbon fixation, and nitrogen cycling, all linked to coal decomposition. Through oxygen consumption and the alteration of coal-active structures, A. spinosa effectively inhibits CSC, providing an experimental basis for exploring eco-friendly biological control methods in the goaf.

Keywords

Coal spontaneous combustion / Microorganisms / Low-temperature oxidation / Aerobic respiration / Genomic mechanism

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Xuanmeng Dong: Writing - original draft, Methodology, Data curation. Botao Qin: Methodology, Investigation. Fusheng Wang: Validation, Supervision. Xiangming Hu: Formal analysis. Liwen Guo: Validation, Supervision. Tiesheng Han: Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-cial interests or personal relationsh ips that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-dation of China (No. 51974128) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2023YFC3009105).

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