Energy Technology

processing of solid fuels

 Introduction
 DIFFERENT solid fossil fuels need different treatments after they have been mine and
before they are utilized as sources of energy.
 Peat contains large amounts of water and is of use without a major portion of it being
removed. By providing proper drainage in peat bogs, a large quantity of water can be
removed.
 However, the major portion of moisture in peat is removed by air-drying it by spreading on
drying fields. Air-dried is suitable for firing directly in domestic ovens and industrial
furnaces and boilers. may also be used in the briquette form.
 The production of peat briquettes involves reduction in disintegrators, then further drying in
hot gases and finally briquetting. is also used in gasification and carbonization processes.
 Lignite is given treatment such as size reduction, drying (in hot gases or steam), briquetting
and carbonization, depending upon the final form in which it is to be fired in domestic and
industrial installations.
 An important use of lignite is for power generation, in which case it is dried to a low
moisture content and then ground to a fine size for pulverized firing Air-dried lignite is
suitable for some gasification processes. Cleaning of lignite in heavy media separators is
practiced on a limited scale for decreasing the ash when required.
 Depending upon its end use, bituminous coal and anthracite may require only size
reduction and sizing, alternatively it may be subjected to more complex processing like
cleaning, drying. briquetting, carbonization, gasification and liquefaction.
Coal preparation
 The raw coal produced from the mine (run-of-mine or ROM) hardly suits
the need of consumers. It is necessary to exercise control over one or
more of its properties like size, ash, sulphur, phosphorus, moisture and
chlorine content depending upon the nature of use.
 In the simplest case of coal preparation, it may be sufficient to just
separate the firm from the lumps, whereas, a multiplicity of operations of
size reduction, size separation, cleaning, drying and mixing on a very
large scale constitute the coal preparation section of a modern coke plant.
 The screening of coal is done by various methods such as screening,
revolving, vibrating, and shaking.
Coal cleaning
 High ash coal needs cleaning with a view of increasing the efficiency of
utilization.
 Depending upon local conditions upper limit of coal ash is fixed for
acceptance.
 Indian coals are high in ash content.
 Besides having a higher efficiency of utilization, a cleaner coal has many other
concomitant advantages, namely economy of transport and storage, less ash
disposal problem and lesser contents of sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine and other
harmful elements.
 Some coals also improve in their caking properties on washing owning to a
decrease in ash percentage and also to enrichment. In vitrain.
 The extraneous mineral matter in a coal is removable by mechanical means.
 A coal is easy to wash when the bulk of mineral matter is due to dirt bands and
rock particles which get mixed with coal during mining or due to dirt settling
on coal while transportation, storage and handling.
• The washability characteristics of coal are best evaluated by the float-and-sink test.
• The advantage is taken of the fact that the mineral substances have much higher
specific gravity than pure coal.
• The specific gravities of pure bituminous coal, shales and pyrites are of the range of
1.28 to 1.37, 2.0 to 2.64 and 2.4 to 4.95, respectively.
• By using liquids of different specific gravities, the coal sample is divided into a number
of fractions in the increasing order of specific gravity and hence of ash value.
Calculation of columns

 Column IV (yield of total floats %) = Cumulative of column III

 Column V (Ash of total floats %)= ∑ (II x III)/IV
 Column VI(yield of total sinks %) = 100- IV
 Column VII (Ash of total sinks %) = (100 x final value of V)-
(IVxV)/VI
 Column VIII (Cumulative yield up to middle of fraction ,CMF %)= total
floats up to fraction (F-1)+ 1/2(yield of fraction F)
 Column V = 9x30/30 ; 9x30+12x20/50; 9x30+12x20+26x23/76
 Column VI =100-30;100-50
 Column VII = (100x27.9) – (30x9)/70
 Column VIII= 0+1/2(30) =15; 30+1/2(20)=40
 (30+20)+1/2(26)=63
 Usually three curves are constructed from the results of the float-and-sink test,
namely, (i) total floats-ash curve, (ii) total sinks-ash curve, and (iii) washability
characteristic curve or instantaneous ash curve.
 From the first two curves one can directly find out the yield and ash of the clean
product (float) and the heavy waste (sink) at a certain specific gravity of
washing.
 Similarly, if one wants to know the specific gravity at which the cleaning should
be done with a view to producing the maximum yield of clean coals within an
upper limit of ash value, the total floats-ash curve is consulted.
 The yields of sink and its ash are read from the total sinks-ash curve at the same
specific gravity. The third curve gives the washability characteristics of coal.
 The curve is so constructed (column eight versus column three) as to indicate the
variation of ash from particle to particle in the increasing order of higher specific
gravity.
 Hence, this curve clearly shows how far it is possible to separate the dins from
the clean coal by mechanical methods
 Classification of coal cleaning
 Depending upon the medium used the cleaning for the various processes are
grouped as dry and wet
 Dry Processing

 A pneumatic table is perforated and riffled sloping deck which is repeatedly reciprocated.
 The coal is fed in a thin stream from the upper corner of the table which is transversely
inclined.
 The table in given reciprocating movement and the air is blown through the deck.
 The coal spreads out over the table and is segregated into clean coal and refuse under the
combined action of the air flow, reciprocating movement of deck and friction resistance.
 The heavy refuse is trapped into riffles and transported to the end of the table.
 The clean coal passes over the riffles and travels towards the lower corner of the table. The
refuse, middling and clean coal are collected in separate receiver.
 In a spiral separator, coal is fed to the top of a tall, vertical spiral. Owing to
a lower coefficient of friction, the clean coal slides to the outside of the spiral
while the refuse slides down the inside of the spiral.
 The Berrisford process is based upon difference in the resilience of clean
coal and dirt. The feed is dropped on to an inclined plane containing a gap of
chosen width. The clean coal bounces and falls on a receiver while the dirt
falls through the gap.
 In the air-sand process, a suspension of sand in air is used as the medium for
coal washing. The mixture of air and sand acts as the dense medium of
suitable specific gravity, where the clean coal floats and the dirts sink.
 The chief advantage of these over the wet processes is the elimination of the
cost of drying wet coal and the difficulty of disposal of slurries of water and
fine coal or dust.
 However, these processes suffer from a great disadvantage, namely, the
requirement of very close limits of screen sizes of the coal feed.
 Moreover, the dry processes cannot satisfactorily clean coals of difficult
washability.
 All these considerations greatly limit the use of the dry processes. Among
these the tables are more widely used. There is no coal washery in India
based on dry cleaning principles.
Wet Processing
 The working principle of the
concentration tables is similar to that of
the pneumatic tables. Water replaces the
air and the washing efficiency is higher,
particularly with the un-sized feeds.
 Trough washers or launders are of
various designs. The Rheolaveur system
consists essentially of one or more
inclined trough in which the clean coal
and the refuse are separated by
alluviation.

 The coal feed and water enter at the top of the trough. The heavier dirts tend to settle at the
lower strata of the bed.
 The lighter clean product remains in the upper strata and overflows at the lower end of the
trough. The flowing refuse at the bottom is continuously removed through several special
pockets called rheo boxes whist are located along the length of the trough.
 The heavier material collected in the rheo boxer may be rewashed in another trough for
recovering further amounts of clean coal.
 In the upward-current classifiers, the dirty
coal is fed at the top of an inverted conical
vessel and a continuous upward current of
water enters through the base. The
separation is effected by adjusting the
velocity of water between the terminal
velocity of fall of the clean coal particles
and that of the dirts.

 The settling dirts impart to the bath some of the properties of a dense medium. Therefore,
the size range of the feed can be greater than would be permitted under typical free
settling conditions.
 The use of concentration tables, trough washers and upward-current classifiers is limited
to coals of close size ranges and good washability characteristics. The efficiency of the
washers is low in the case of difficult coals. These are not in use in India.
 Jigs and dense medium separators are very widely used in coal washing
plants. Most washers in India are equipped with these two types of
equipment. Jigs have been the most common type of coal washer the
world over. Recently dense medium separators have become very
popular owing to their better performance in the case of difficult coals.
However, jigs are better adaptable to finer sizes than dense medium
separators.
 In a jig washer, a coal bed is maintained on a perforated plate and
subjected to the action of periodic upward and downward current of
water.
 This action stratifies the coal bed mainly according to the specific
gravity of the particles. The clean coal is concentrated largely in the
upper strata of the bed and the dirt accumulate in the lower strata.
 The pulsating movement of water in the jig may be created by different
means. The older types of jigs utilize reciprocating plungers or
diaphragms.
 The Baum jig produces water pulsations by alternately admitting and releasing compressed
air. A Baum jig consists of a U-shaped box divided longitudinally by a vertical partition into
washing and air compartments. The former is sub-divided into two sections by a transverse
partition. Each section of the washing compartment is provided with a sieve. The water
pulsation is caused at the rate of 30 to 60 cycles/min in the air compartment and relayed to
the adjoining washing compartment. The unclean coal is fed at one end of the washing
compartment. Large pieces of the refuse collect at the bottom of the first section itself.
 The clean coal and the smaller sizes of the refuse are carried forward over the
weir into the second section. While the refuse sinks to the bottom, the clean coal
is carried by the flowing water over the discharge-weir.
 The refuse is periodically removed from the two sections through valves. Fine
dins fall through the sieves into the bottom of the washer and are removed by a
conveyer.
 The size of coal that may be treated in jigs may be anything between 200 mm
and 0.5 mm. However, jigs are now often used to wash small coal, say below 25
mm, the larger sizes being treated in dense medium separators. Jigs cannot wash
fines below 0.5 mm and their efficiency drops sharply when the content of sizes
below 3 mm grows above 25 per cent. For such fines, cyclone washers are quite
suitable. Flotation cells are also used in the washing of coal fines. When the
feed of 200 mm to zero is jigged, the fines remain unwashed and go to form
slurries which need further treatment for the recovery of combustibles.
 The efficiency of jigs is more than 98 per cent for coals with 10 per cent near
gravity material. The optimum capacity of jigs is 200 to 400 tonnes per
hour(tph). However, commercial units of 20 as well as 600 tph capacity are
known to exist.
 Cyclone washers were developed during the second world war in Holland and, within ten
years, found very wide application for washing small sized coals. The most distinctive
features of these washers are a high quality of separation, and a high flexibility of operation
with regard to percentage of near gravity material, coal particle size, feed rate and separation
gravity. The modern cyclone washers compare favorably with jigs in capital cost. The slightly
higher maintenance cost of the former is more than compensated by the higher efficiency and
greater flexibility.
Cont...
 Cyclone washers operate essentially on the principle of a settling chamber in
which gravitational acceleration is replaced by centrifugal acceleration. Coal
industries use low pressure horizontal cyclones wherein the centrifugal force is
about 40 times the gravitational force.
 This low value is sufficient to produce an accurate and rapid separation of raw
coal of as small as 0.5 mm particle size, overcoming the effect of viscosity
caused by 6 mm to 0.5 mm fines. On the other hand, the use of low feed pressure
reduces energy consumption and simplifies the installation of the cyclone
washer. Cyclone washers are usually built in the normal capacity of 70 to 150
tph.
 The feed of cyclone washer is a pulp of des-limed raw coal and heavy medium
such as magnetite. The overflow from the cyclone contains the cleans and
underflow contains the sink.
 These are de-pulped and the products are rinsed with water before final disposal.
The recovered slurry of heavy medium particles s reused after suitable
treatments.
 Calculating washer efficiency
 Their are many formula available for calculating washer efficiency. Some of the
formula are:
1. Fraser and Yancey:

2. Yancey and Geer:

100
3. Anderson

The recovery of the clean coal in the washer is the best calculated from the ash
balance:

 The Fraser and Yancey formula is widely used. It does not account any size
reduction taking place in actual washer which releases more dirt and alter
washability characteristic.
 Storage of coal
 Coal consuming industries usually store large quantities of coal at the plant as a reserve
to offset interference in the supply. During its storage coal undergoes a series of
changes by exposure to the atmosphere. This process is known as the weathering of
coal.
 The extent of changes depends upon the method of storage and the nature of coal.
Weathering is more pronounced with lower rank coals and greater exposure to air. By
storing coal under water and in trenches the weathering may be minimised.
 The properties affected by the storage of coal are:
 size,
 friability,
 caking capacity,
 ultimate analysis,
 calorific value, and
 yields of carbonisation products.
 Weathering tends to reduce the coal size and increase its friability. The formation of
slacks or small sizes of coal is particularly pronounced with sub-bituminous coal,
lignite and Nat. This imposes a serious problem in the handling, transport and storage of
these fuels. Anthracite and mature butuminous coal do not slack.
 The caking capacity is very sensitive to aerial oxidation and always decreases on
weathering.
 A slight decrease in the caking capacity may improve the coke size in some cases but
generally the coking properties deteriorate during the storage of coal.
 Other parameters which fall by weathering are carbon content, hydrogen content,
calorific value and tar yield. The oxygen content and yields of gas and liquor increase
by atmospheric oxidation.
 Weathering of coal is essentially a result of mild oxidation and hence, an
exothermic process. If the heat liberated is not completely dissipated, the
temperature of the coal rises.
 Since the rate of chemical reaction is approximately doubled by a rise of 10 C, the
extent of atmospheric oxidation goes on increasing at an accelerated rate with, a
greater quantity of heat liberated.
 Ultimately the coal may reach its ignition point and burst into flames. This
phenomenon is known as the spontaneous inflammation of coal and is associated
with the storage of coal in bulk, say, 200 tonnes for bituminous coal and 50 tonnes
for lignite.
 This hazard may be avoided by decreasing the exposed surface of coal lumps and
suppressing the ventilation. The rate of oxidation appears to increase proportionally
to about the cube root of the surface area per unit weight of the coal.
 The exposed surface area is reduced by avoiding segregation and by packing the coal tightly
and uniformly.
 Blanketing the pile with fine coal is also helpful in decreasing the ventilation. Another useful
measure is to surround the coal vile by a wall MI these constitute a positive measure in
minimizing the extent or oxidation which is the root cause of spontaneous inflammation.
Another approach is to enhance the ventilation in such a way that the liberated heat is fast
dissipated away. This method is not recommended in practice.
 Whenever coal is stored in balk for a long time, its temperature should be measured at various
points of the pile from time to time.
 Above 70°C, the risk of spontaneous inflammation is great. Therefore, the coal should be
consumed before this critical temperature is reached. Water spraying helps only in the initial
stages and not after the crossing of the danger point. As a rule, coal should not be stored near a
source of heat.
 The problems connected with the storage of coal also apply to the coal in the ships' bunkers and
cargoes. Here the conditions of ventilation and proximity of heat source are such that the
spontaneous inflammation may occur in piles of smaller quantities, that is, less than 200 tonnes.
 Therefore greater care must be taken to prevent any rise of coal temperature beyond the critical
value.
 Freshly mined coals are most susceptible to spontaneous combustion. This hazard usually
occurs within four to five weeks of mining. If coal has been safely stored for more than six
months, it is not usually liable to spontaneous combustion.
 Gasification of solid fuels
 Solid fuels may be gasified through reaction with
 air, oxygen, steam, carbon dioxide or mixture of these into a product that is
suitable for use
 either as fuel or as raw material for making chemicals, liquid fuel or other
gaseous fuels.
 The coal is gasified due to advantage that
 Gaseous fuel is cleaner and environment friendly
 The overall efficiency of use increases if gasified coal is used.
 In gasification processes coal or other solid fuels are converted at high
temperature into fuel gases, synthesis gases or hydrogen.
 These fuel gases may have low medium or high calorific value which
can be obtained by applying different gasifying medium like air,
oxygen, steam and hydrogen.
 The quality of gas is also influenced by special process conditions eg.
High pressure or catalytic gasification to obtain high methane content.
 Low calorific value producer gas is mainly used for industrial purpose.
 Medium calorific value gas is produced by pressure gasification of
lignite.
 The most widely used synthesis gas in chemical industries is produced
by hydrogasification or gasification with oxygen and steam followed by
methanation.
 Classification of coal Gasification
 Gasification processes may be classified in number of ways:
 1. By method of supplying Heat required
 (i) Internal Heating
 a) Autothermic, for example producer gas
 b) Cyclic, for example water gas
 c) Heat carrying fluids or solids for example Koppers process
 (ii) External Heating or allothermic
 For autothermal process the heat is supplied internally by partial oxidation of fuel with
oxygen or air.
 This can be done either continuously or by cyclic process.
 During continuous process steam and oxygen are supplied together
 Whereas in cyclic process the fuel bed is first heated up by combustion with air or oxygen
followed by second step in which the hot fuel is gasified using steam.
 In allothermic continuous process the heat required for endothermic reaction are supplied by
heat carrying solids or fluids . E.g. superheated steam through walls of reaction vessel or via
heat exchanger located in fuel bed.
 2. By the method of contacting reactants
 (i) Fixed Bed
 (ii) Fluidized bed
 (iii) Suspension of particles in gamifying medium, Kopper-Totzek
 3. By the flow of reactant
 Concurrent, for example Kopper -Totzek
 Counter current, for example producer gas
Classification of coal Gasification

 4. By the gasifying medium

 (i) air steam for example producer gas
 (ii) steam with oxygen or air or oxygen enriched air for example
water gas, kopper totzek, lurgi, winkler
 Hydrogen in hydrogasification
 5.By the condition of the residue removed
 (i) Dry ash in nonslagging operation (All the common gasification
processes fall in this group)
 (ii) Slag in slagging operation