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Title: Flow and design characteristics of the hydrocyclone for the recovery of coal fines. Final report

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6956804

The objective of this project was to do a basic study to identify the flow and design variables of the conventional hydrocyclone and experimentally determine how each one individually affects its operation while all the others are held constant. Spheres were initially used to model solid particles. It was then to be seen if the data using spheres could be used to determine optimum configurations for given applications. The specific application of interest in this project is the separation of coal fines from waste materials such as gob or settling pond settlings. The relevant variables of the standard hydrocyclone have been identified. Two experimental hydrocyclone systems have been designed and constructed so that the flow rate, inlet area, vortex finder length and diameter, underflow diameter, length of hydrocyclone chamber and cone angle can all be varied, one at a time, while all other variables are held constant. It was first shown that the sphere data compares well with data using random shaped coal particles with approximately the same mean diameters as the spheres. Then a hydrocyclone configuration was selected, by use of the sphere data, to separate coal fines from gob material. Good coal fines recovery from the gob (mineral waste) samples has been achieved on a batch basis. Recovery of 99% to 100% of the coal fines in a sample of gob has been achieved in the size range of from 0.187 inch (0.0047 m) to 0.500 inch (0.0127 m). Recovery of approximately 91% was achieved in the size range of from 0.0937 inch (0.0024 m) to 0.187 inch (0.0047 m). It should be emphasized that these results were obtained on a batch basis. 97 references, 5 figures, 3 tables.

Research Organization:
Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale (USA). Dept. of Engineering Mechanics and Materials
DOE Contract Number:
FG22-81PC40807
OSTI ID:
6956804
Report Number(s):
DOE/PC/40807-T10; ON: DE84009968
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English