Micro-agglomerate flotation for deep cleaning of coal. Quarterly technical progress report, April 1, 1995--June 30, 1995

The development, of practical technologies for the deep cleaning of coal has been seriously hampered by the problems of carrying out efficient coal/mineral separations at the very fine sizes (often finer than 10 mm) needed to achieve adequate liberation of the mineral matter from the coal matrix. In froth flotation, selectivity is substantially reduced at fine sizes due, primarily, to overloading of the froth phase which leads to excessive carryover of water and entrained mineral matter. Oil agglomeration, on the other hand, can provide good selectivity at low levels of oil addition but the agglomerates tend to be too fragile for separation by the screening methods normally used. This project is concerned with a hydrid process, micro-agglomerate flotation, which is a combination of oil agglomeration and froth flotation