A mobile plant for fine coal cleaning

CIM Bulletin, Vol. 77, No. 865, 1984

M.W. MIKHAIL and R.J. MIKULA

Funding has been made available through the National Energy Program to build a mobile fine coal treatment plant. The plant is intended for field application and also to upgrade the existing pilot plant facilities. Western Canadian coals with high proportions of fines (due to their friability) cause high losses of fine coal to the reject and in turn reduce the over-all recovery of saleable coal. Eastern Canadian coals with high amounts of sulphur often require crushing to fine sizes to liberate pyrite and therefore need effective and efficient separation of these fine sulphur particles. The difficulties involved in solving these problems are two-fold. One is the reluctance to experiment in an operating wash plant and the other is that laboratory scale testing often cannot be extrapolated to the plant environment. The mobile fine cleaning plant with its ability to operate at existing coal preparation plants across Canada and with its flexibility in implementing flowsheet options and close monitoring of fine coal circuit variables, is ideally suited to solve these fine coal cleaning problems. The mobile plant objectives are to design and optimize flowsheets, evaluate and improve fine cleaning circuit operations and to test new process monitoring and control equipment. The schedule for construction and the required resources will be outlined along with flowsheet options and the general R&D philosophy of the mobile plant.

Mots Clés: Coal preparation, Mobile plant, Coal treatment, Beneficiation, Fine coal