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Coal Washing

Coal washing is a process that removes impurities like sulfur and ash from raw coal to upgrade its value for specific uses, without changing the coal's physical identity. There are two main types of coal washing: physical washing, which uses differences in density, and chemical washing, which is still being developed. Coal washing is an important part of coal preparation and involves steps like crushing, screening, physical separation processes, dewatering, and drying to produce clean coal. A key analytical technique used is float and sink testing, where coal samples are separated using liquid solutions of varying density to determine washing effectiveness and optimum plant operations.

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110 views

Coal Washing

Coal washing is a process that removes impurities like sulfur and ash from raw coal to upgrade its value for specific uses, without changing the coal's physical identity. There are two main types of coal washing: physical washing, which uses differences in density, and chemical washing, which is still being developed. Coal washing is an important part of coal preparation and involves steps like crushing, screening, physical separation processes, dewatering, and drying to produce clean coal. A key analytical technique used is float and sink testing, where coal samples are separated using liquid solutions of varying density to determine washing effectiveness and optimum plant operations.

Uploaded by

Tamirat Worku
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Coal washing is a process which involves various operations performed on run-of-mine coal by which

impurities such as sulfur, ash, and rock are removed from it to upgrade its value for specific end uses,
without destroying the physical identity of the coal. Coal washing processes are categorized as either
physical washing or chemical washing. Physical coal washing processes, the mechanical separation of
coal from its contaminants (impurities) using differences in density, are by far the major processes in use
today. Chemical coal washing processes are currently being developed, but their performance and cost
are undetermined at this time.
Coal washing is one of the most important steps in coal preparation which includes blending and
homogenization, size reduction, grinding, screening and handling. Therefore, coal can be subjected to
different levels of washing, depending upon its type, its utilization with consideration of the cost of
washing.
The equipments used for washing of coal include centrifuges, froth flotation devices, disc filters,
thickeners, cyclones, and thermal dryers.
Coal preparation process starts with crushing and screening of freshly mined coal, which removes some
of the non-coal material. Mechanical washing is actually the process of separation of non-coal materials
or undesired adherent materials of coal by using a liquid medium. The liquid medium may be an
aqueous solution or organic liquid. Sometimes a heavy, finely ground mineral, such as magnetite is
added in the liquid medium to ensure the removal of unwanted rock and mineral matter from coal
particles. Wet or hydraulic washing technique is a process which includes agitation of the coal-liquid
feed by aeration, materials sorting according to relative density in hydrocyclones, and froth flotation to
recover fine coal particles.
Prepared coal is usually dewatered to some extent as excess moisture lowers the deliverable heat
content in the coal and increases the weight of coal. Dewatering equipments includes less costly
vibrating screens, filters, or centrifuges to the more costly heated rotary kilns or dryer units.
In general, typical steps in coal preparation include crushing, screening into different size fractions,
physical or mechanical processes to remove undesired impurities, dewatering, thermal drying, blending
and agglomeration or briquetting.
Washing of coal
Since washing of coal represents the most important step of coal preparation. The raw run-of-mine coal
must require some selective qualitative and quantitative analysis for finding out the most suitable
operating conditions for washing of coal to obtain the desired quality. Among these analyses washability
test is most important.

Washability test
The washability test method can be used to investigate the washing characteristics of coarse- and finecoal fractions. However, especially with the fine-coal fractions, this test method may not be applicable
for low-rank coals.
Washability characteristics of coal is applied
(1) To find the relative ease for separation of coal from the refuse based on the difference in
specific gravity.
(2) To find the effectiveness of coal washing in particular process.
(3) To characterize the type and amount of impurities
(4) To select the optimum plant operation
(5) To gather the information for designing a separation plant.
The washability test is done by float and sinks method. The float and sink test is an important analytical
technique for the washing of coal in most effective way.
Float and Sink Test
In the float and sink method, the freshly mined coal lumps are first crushed into different size fractions
such as, 50-25, 25-13, 13-06, 06-03, 03-0.5 mm through screen analysis. The different fractions of the
coal are separated by washing with different specific gravity organic solutions like carbon tetrachloride,
perchloroethylene, benzene or aqueous solution of zinc chloride or other inorganic salt. Each of the
individual size fractions are subjected to sequential float and sink tests with different density liquid. The
liquid solutions of varying density with a very small difference in specific gravity such as 0.01 are
prepared within the range of 1.25 and 1.9. Sometimes the density range may be broadened up to 2.25
depending on the type of coal. The different size coal samples are immersed into organic solution of
known specific gravity, then the float and sink fractions of coal obtained in the washability test are
separated out. The ash content of each fraction is determined. The float-sink test can be performed on
samples ranging in size from bulk samples to bench-scale of coal samples.

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