Column flotation technology for the beneficiation of coking and non-coking coal fines

Abstract

The importance of coal is bound to increase for the coming years with the growth of coal consuming industries. Power sector is the most potential consumer of the non-coking coal and for coking coal iron & steel sector remains the major consumer. In future, coal gasification which is successfully adopted in China, an advanced coal-based power generation technology has the potential to provide higher generating efficiency and can be adopted to efficiently burn India’s high-ash coals. In the present study investigations are carried out on coal fines for both coking and non coking coals by conventional and column flotation techniques to suit industrial applications. Coking coal sample is taken from Jamadoba area in Jharkhand and non-coking coal is drawn from coal belt in Central Coal Fields, Jharkhand. For both the coals detailed studies are in progress for optimizing the reagent consumption and to establish the feasibility of column flotation technology for producing low ash concentrates with reasonably high recoveries.