Desulfurization of coal by microbial column flotation
- Central Research Inst. of Electric Power Industry, Chiba (Japan). Dept. of Biotechnology
Twenty-three strains capable of oxidizing iron were isolated from coal and ore storage sites as well as coal and ore mines, volcanic areas, and hot spring. Four strains were found to have high iron-oxidizing activity. One strain (T-4) was selected for this experiment since the strain showed the fastest leaching rate of iron and sulfate from pyrite among the four strains. The T-4 strain was assigned for Thiobacillus ferrooxidans from its cultural and morphological characteristics. Bacterial treatment was applied to column flotation. An increase of cell density in the microbial column flotation resulted in the increase of pyrite removal from a coal-pyrite mixture with corresponding decrease of coal recovery. The addition of kerosene into the microbial column flotation increased the recovery of the imitated coal from 55% (without kerosene) to 81% (with 50 [mu]L/L kerosene) with the reduction of pyrite sulfur content from11% (feed coal) to 3.9% (product coal). An excellent separation was obtained by the microbial flotation using a long column which had a length-diameter (L/D) ratio of 12.7.
- OSTI ID:
- 7260527
- Journal Information:
- Biotechnology and Bioengineering; (United States), Vol. 44:1; ISSN 0006-3592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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