Air-Sparged Hydrocyclone/Advanced Froth Flotation fine coal cleaning

Technical Report · Sun May 27 04:00:00 EDT 1990

OSTI ID:6581547

Stoessner, R D ^[1]; Shirey, G A; Zawadzki, E A ^[2]; Welsh, C F ^[3]; Miller, J D ^[4]; Shell, W P ^[5]

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1. Pennsylvania Electric Co., Johnstown, PA (USA)
2. Management and Technical Systems, McMurray, PA (USA)
3. Davy Dravo (USA)
4. Utah Univ., Salt Lake City, UT (USA)
5. Ebasco Services, Inc., New York, NY (USA)

In May 1988, the Pennsylvania Electric Company (Penelec) and New York State Electric and Gas Corporation (NYSEG) were awarded a contract from the Department of Energy's Pittsburgh Energy and Technology Center (DOE-PETC) to evaluate the performance of a two-inch Air-Sparged Hydrocyclone (ASH) for cleaning fine minus-100-mesh coal. A 24-month study was successfully completed, optimizing the performance of the ASH for cleaning raw classified, naturally-occurring minus-100-mesh Upper Freeport coal, and comparing its performance with Advanced Froth Flotation (AFF), a procedure utilizing conventional flotation equipment operated in an advanced manner (low impeller speeds, starvation float, multiple-stage cleaning, etc.) with highly selective reagents to optimize ash and pyritic sulfur rejection. The economics of cleaning fine coal by both processes at commercial scale, for retrofit and greenfield applications were found to be comparable within the accuracy of the study. Technical performance of the two processes were also found to be essentially identical. Thus, the ASH would be the best choice for a retrofit installation into an existing plant because of requiring less space. Both processes were successful in achieving excellent separations when cleaning the Upper Freeport coal. Both the ASH and AFF circuits were able to produce a clean-coal product of yield (65--80 percent weight recovery) and quality (5--6 percent ash) equivalent to that as theoretically determined by float-sink washability analyses. Combining either of the two fine coal flotation processes with a classifying cyclone circuit resulted in pyritic sulfur rejection values of about 85 percent. 47 refs., 109 figs., 75 tabs.

• Research Organization: Pennsylvania Electric Co., Johnstown, PA (USA); Management and Technical Systems, McMurray, PA (USA); Davy Dravo (USA); Utah Univ., Salt Lake City, UT (USA); Ebasco Services, Inc., New York, NY (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/FE
• DOE Contract Number: AC22-88PC88853
• OSTI ID: 6581547
• Report Number(s): DOE/PC/88853-T2; ON: DE90016410
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
010300* -- Coal
Lignite
& Peat-- Preparation-- (1987-)
ASH CONTENT
CARBONACEOUS MATERIALS
CHALCOGENIDES
CLEANING
COAL
COAL PREPARATION
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CONCENTRATORS
CYCLONE SEPARATORS
DOCUMENT TYPES
ECONOMICS
ENERGY SOURCES
EQUIPMENT
FLOTATION
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
INERTIAL SEPARATORS
IRON COMPOUNDS
IRON SULFIDES
MATERIALS
MINERALS
PERFORMANCE
POLLUTION CONTROL EQUIPMENT
PROGRESS REPORT
PYRITE
RETROFITTING
SEPARATION EQUIPMENT
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SULFIDE MINERALS
SULFIDES
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SULFUR CONTENT
TRANSITION ELEMENT COMPOUNDS