Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Direct utilization: recovery of minerals from coal fly ash. Fossil Energy program. Technical progress report, 1 January-30 March 1980

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5203676· OSTI ID:5203676

Research is focused on the development of methods for recovering minerals from power station fly ash, use of less costly reactants, improvement of energy efficiency, and development of uses for by-products. A research plan developed for collection of kinetic data for fly ash chlorination (HiChlor process) includes the use of different reactant gas mixtures contacting a small bed of fly ash in a new, vertical, down-flow reactor. In work on the lime-soda sinter process, research includes the common ion effect on the concentrations of dissolved alumina, silica, and calcium in the filtrates obtained from extraction of the sintered clinker. Experiments conducted to determine decomposition data for several samples of limestone scrubber sludge are reported. These experiments are the first step toward the possible use of the waste sludge as a replacement for limestone in the sintering process. A series of experiments conducted to evaluate the reactivity of commercial limestones showed that high grade limestone gave alumina recoveries equivalent to those obtained using reagent-grade CaCO/sub 3/ for nine sinter mixtures which were tested. Increased interest use of the iron-rich magnetic fly ash fraction as a heavy media material for coal beneficiation led to preparation of a research proposal to increase the scale of testing by use of commercial heavy media cyclones. The scope of the research is to be expanded to include a range of fly ashes and several commercial magnetite samples. Hydrochemical beneficiation tests of the iron-rich fraction to produce iron ore indicate that the limited dissolution of alumina from the ash is probably due to secondary precipitation reactions during digestion.

Research Organization:
Ames Lab., IA (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-82
OSTI ID:
5203676
Report Number(s):
IS-4744
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English