Coal Preparation » Environmental Improvement
Traditional coal preparation involves a number of wet processing technologies which have been in use for many years. Whilst washing coal has allowed coal mines to provide higher quality product, it comes with drawbacks. Environmental regulations and guidelines are pointing towards a reduction in water and energy usage, reducing the Carbon footprint of mining operations and eliminating or minimising the effects of tailing dams.
Australian Inspection Technologies Pty Ltd has developed a Coal Dry Preparation technology that evaluates the optical characteristics of crushed and screened ROM particles rather than density. The aim of this project is to demonstrate that the technology has achieved the following goals of, beneficiation of higher capacities, processing of smaller and larger size fractions, improved processing of middlings and also to establish a way of creating parameters for processing coal that relate to performance measurement criteria of washing plants.
This report provides detailed information on the procedures and measurement criteria developed and the results of analysis of both thermal coal and coking coal samples. All the evaluation work demonstrates that the DRYSCAN™ technology can successfully identify and separate coal and ash particles of all density fractions with high efficiencies. The report provides the washability and the DRYSCAN™ related Dry Clean Ability curves for the coal samples tested as well as the Ep curves. The DRYSCAN™ Ep values of 0.025-0.07 for coal A and 0.035-0.1 for coal B, are comparable to the Ep values of ~0.03 for the DMC industry standard.
Many coal mining companies have provided samples and invaluable feedback directly, or indirectly through ACARP for which we express our sincere appreciation. We are looking forward to assist the coal mining industry achieving its targets to improve performances, energy & water efficiency and reducing the environmental footprint, through the supply of our DRYSCAN™ technology.