Enhanced ultrafine coal dewatering using flocculation filtration processes

Ultrafine coal (−150 μm) can be effectively cleaned using advanced separation techniques such as column flotation, however, dewatering it to below 20 percent moisture level using the conventional dewatering techniques is difficult. A comparative flocculation filtration study was performed for enhancing dewatering of ultrafine coal using vacuum, hyperbaric, and centrifugal filters. The cationic and anionic flocculants were added into the slurry individually or in combinations. filtration results showed that use of flocculants increased filtration rate by several times and/or substantially reduced cake moisture. Combined use of anionic and cationic flocculants showed further improvement. Addition of flocculants significantly increased filtration rate of hyperbaric filtration and reduced cake moisture in centrifugal filtration. Anionic flocculant was more effective in enhancing fine coal dewatering than cationic flocculant in vacuum filtration while cationic flocculant was more effective in high shear centrifugal filtration. A new approach on using flocculants in vacuum filtration is proposed for enhanced fine coal dewatering.