Unlike wet beneficiation technologies such as dense media or floatation, dry, triboelectrostatic separation has no counter part to float-sink analysis or release analysis. In an attempt to develop a performance method or procedure for dry, electrostatic processing of coal and fly ash, a recovery analysis technique was developed. It provides data similar to washability or release analyses that are used for wet beneficiation technologies and offers a way to characterize the performance of dry beneficiation technologies. To demonstrate the validity of the method, the data obtained on an analytical laboratory separator were used to generate recovery curves for a suite of coals and fly ashes. The results of these recovery analyses are presented and discussed. A comparison of the dry, separation recovery analyses with release analyses is used to show that the wet-based analysis methods are not appropriate for characterizing dry, triboelectrostatic separation. Dry triboelectrostatic separation can effectively remove minerals from coal, or carbon from fly ash.
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