Comparative Studies of Different Frothers vis-a-vis Lowering of Ash Content in a Coking Coal from West Bokaro, India

Coking coals are used in steel industry. Coking coals with high ash content could be used in the steel industry only after reducing the ash content to a tolerable level. An unclassified coking coal sample from West Bokaro with 25.94% ash, 47.96% fixed carbon and 26.14% volatile matter was used in the present study to reduce the ash content by froth flotation technique; employing various frothers. The frothers, such as, pine oil, MIBC and polyglycol ether were attempted along with kerosene oil as a collector. Three dosage levels were adopted with each frother while the other conditions like wetting, conditioning and residence time were maintained uniform with each frother. Among the frothers,with 1.0 kg/t MIBC , the ash was reduced to 22.56% with a yield of about 88.0%. By adopting one cleaning, the ash was reduced to 18.78% with 73.3% yield.