Appalachian Clean Coal Technology Consortium: Technical progress report, October 1--December 31, 1995

In the dewatering project, two different approaches are taken. One approach involves displacing the water on the surface of coal by a hydrophobic substance that can be readily recovered and recycled. This novel concept, referred to as the Hydrophobic Dewatering (HD) process, is based on improved understanding of the surface chemistry of dewatering. The other approach is to use disposable dewatering substances in mechanical dewatering. The objectives of the proposed work are (1) to test the HD process on a variety of coals from the Appalachian coal fields, and (2) to identify suitable dewatering reagents that would enable mechanical dewatering to reduce the moisture to the levels satisfactory to electrical utilities and other coal users. The objective of the spiral separation project is to use computer modeling to develop better, more efficient spiral designs for coal cleaning. The fully-developed model will predict spiral performance based on variations in spiral profile, flow rate, and pitch. Specific goals are to: (1) design spirals capable of making separations at a specific gravity of 1.5, and (2) broaden the size range at which spirals make effective separations