Beneficiation of Thermal coal

About 110 million tonnes of non-coking coal is being mined every year out of which 32% is being used in thermal power plants. The quality of thermal coal is deteriorating day by day due to mechanised bulk mining, poor quality control and depletion of high quality coal seams. The properties and quality of impurities in coal are of major importance in the design and operation of steam generation equipment. The efficiency and longivity of thermal plants and equipment can be improved by using high quality coal. Increased demand for quality coal and environmental requi-rements necessitate beneficiation of thermal coal. Benefi-ciation will reduce the burden on transportation espec-ially when power plants are far off from the pit heads. An attempt is made in this paper to beneficiate Talcher thermal coal in order to reduce ash