POC-scale testing of an advanced fine coal dewatering equipment/technique. Quarterly progress report, July - September 1996

The advanced fine-coal cleaning techniques such as column flotation, recovers a low-ash ultra-fine size clean-coal product. However, economical dewatering of the clean coal product to less than 20 percent moisture using conventional technology is difficult. This research program objective is to evaluate a novel coal surface modification technique developed at the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research in conjunction with conventional and advanced dewatering technique at a pilot scale. The study which is in progress is being conducted at the Powell Mountain Coal Company`s Mayflower preparation plant located in St. Charles, VA. During this quarter laboratory dewatering studies were conducted using a 4-in diameter laboratory chemical centrifuge. The baseline data provided a filter cake with about 32% moisture. Addition of 0.3 kg/t of a cationic surfactant lowered the moisture to 29%. Addition of anionic and non-ionic surfactant was not effective in reducing the filter cake moisture content. In the pilot scale studies, a comparison was conducted between the high pressure and vacuum dewatering techniques. The base line data with high pressure and vacuum filtration provided filter cakes with 23.6% and 27.8% moisture, respectively. Addition of 20 g/t of cationic flocculent provided 21% filter cake moisture using the high pressure filter. A 15% moisture filter cake was obtained using 1.5 kg/t of non-ionic surfactant. Vacuum filter provided about 23% to 25% moisture product with additional reagents. The high pressure filter processed about 3 to 4 times more solids compared to vacuum filter