Deposits of coal slurry as secondary resources of hard coal

Wiesław Blaschke, Ireneusz Baic, Wojciech Sobko, Beata Witkowska-Kita

Deposits of coal slurry as secondary resources of hard coal

Číslo: 3/2018
Periodikum: Acta Montanistica Slovaca

Klíčová slova: coal slurry deposits, coal waste, settling ponds, waste treatment technology, preparation of coal

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Anotace: The article describes comprehensively, on the basis of inventoried sites, issues related to the suitability of coal slurry deposits for the

energetic and economical application. The effect of inventory was the localisation of 62 coal-slurry deposits in which almost 16,5 mln Mg of
coal slurry was stored. Due to the fact that part of the sites, on which coal slurry was stored, were subject to anthropogenic transformation
a mathematical formula was developed that allows determining with the assumed accuracy the amounts of coal slurry produced and
environmentally stored. The conducted estimated analysis, using this formula, showed that since 1945, there have been nearly 120 mln Mg of
coal slurry stored in the environment that is eight times more than it was inventoried and what is currently recognised in official statistics. In
order to develop the most cost-effective beneficiation technology of inventoried coal slurry deposits, detailed qualitative studies were
conducted afterwards. They were carried out on the basis of an authorial research methodology which defines the scope of necessary
physical and chemical parameters that must be determined for the particular samples of coal slurry. The obtained results show significant
diversification in the quality of coal slurries stored in the particular settling ponds. The reason for this is the diversification of types of
technological coal that come from the particular coal mines that used these settling ponds, as well as the efficiency of the technological
solutions in terms of preparation processes applied by the particular coal mines. For this reason, there was an individual approach
necessary to develop technologies of their preparation in order to obtain a full value fuel that meets the requirements set by the power
sector. In the paper, the results of the analysis of the energetic potential of identified coal slurry deposits before and after the preparation
process are also presented. Estimation of energetic potential was made using the authorial double-option algorithm. The presented results of
coal slurry preparation studies and the analysis of their energetic potential have shown that as a result of preparation a significant amount
of this potential is lost. This is the effect of movement of the finest grain of coal grains to refuse. The most favourable results, meaning the
smallest losses of energetic potential according to the preparation results, were obtained using flotation technology. The conducted tests
enable one to conclude that there is a possibility of preparation of coal slurry stored in the deposits. However, considerable losses of the
energetic potential of these materials should be expected.