Development of an Ultra-fine Coal Dewatering Technology and an Integrated Flotation-Dewatering System for Coal Preparation Plants

Abstract

The project proposal was approved for only the phase I period. The goal for this Phase I project was to develop an industrial model that can perform continuous and efficient dewatering of fine coal slurries of the previous flotation process to fine coal cake of {approx}15% water content from 50-70%. The feasibility of this model should be demonstrated experimentally using a lab scale setup. The Phase I project was originally for one year, from May 2005 to May 2006. With DOE approval, the project was extended to Dec. 2006 without additional cost from DOE to accomplish the work. Water has been used in mining for a number of purposes such as a carrier, washing liquid, dust-catching media, fire-retardation media, temperature-control media, and solvent. When coal is cleaned in wet-processing circuits, waste streams containing water, fine coal, and noncombustible particles (ash-forming minerals) are produced. In many coal preparation plants, the fine waste stream is fed into a series of selection processes where fine coal particles are recovered from the mixture to form diluted coal fine slurries. A dewatering process is then needed to reduce the water content to about 15%-20% so that the product is marketable. However, in the dewatering processmore » currently used in coal preparation plants, coal fines smaller than 45 micrometers are lost, and in many other plants, coal fines up to 100 micrometers are also wasted. These not-recovered coal fines are mixed with water and mineral particles of the similar particle size range and discharged to impoundment. The wasted water from coal preparation plants containing unrecoverable coal fine and mineral particles are called tailings. With time the amount of wastewater accumulates occupying vast land space while it appears as threat to the environment. This project developed a special extruder and demonstrated its application in solid-liquid separation of coal slurry, tailings containing coal fines mostly less than 50 micron. The extruder is special because all of its auger surface and the internal barrier surface are covered with the membranes allowing water to drain and solid particles retained. It is believed that there are four mechanisms working together in the dewatering process. They are hydrophilic diffusion flow, pressure flow, agitation and air purging. Hydrophilic diffusion flow is effective with hydrophilic membrane. Pressure flow is due to the difference of hydraulic pressure between the two sides of the membrane. Agitation is provided by the rotation of the auger. Purging is achieved with the air blow from the near bottom of the extruder, which is in vertical direction.« less