Coal Preparation Research in Australia's Commonwealth and Scientific Research Organisation (CSIRO)- Dense Medium Cyclone Circuits

摘要

CSIRO is Australia's national science agency. With over 5000 scientists, engineers, technicians and support staff working in 55 centres across Australia and overseas. We are a billion dollar organisation and generate $485+ million in external revenue - essentially nearly 40% per cent of our revenue is externally sourced. We work with over 1200 SME's and 2,877 customers each year and are always looking for ways we can help business and industry. We are in the top 1% of global research institutions in 15 of 22 research fields and in the top 0.1% in four research fields. CSIRO is present in Santiago Chili, Montpellier in France, India, and Indonesia and over half the dryland cotton grown in the US is produced from varieties bred by CSIRO. In the coal mining industry, CSIRO is known globally for its long wall automation system (LASC). CSIRO's focus areas are; Agriculture and food, Data and digital, Energy, Health and biosecurity, Land and water. Manufacturing, Mineral resources, Oceans and atmospheres, Astronomy and Space science, Research Infrastructure, Research Collections, Education, Publishing and Consulting services. The Coal Mining and Processing business unit sits in the Energy focus area. The Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) has supported some projects over the last ten years in CSIRO with the ultimate aim of producing an "Intelligent Coal Preparation Plant". An Intelligent Plant is one that recognises operating issues and takes steps to avert poor operating conditions based on the measurement of certain parameters. The dense medium cyclone circuit, for instance, involves the monitoring of the underflow and overflow medium densities using unique non-nucleonic online instrumentation developed by the CSIRO and the JKMRC. These instruments were installed in a coal preparation plant and the data remotely accessed and recorded along with the current plant operating conditions. This type of data has previously not been available to operators This paper describes these instruments and how the data can be used to optimise the operation of the Dense Medium Cyclone (DMC). Scenarios based on the data collected are examined, and the dynamic relationship with this data and plant process changes such as changes in feed medium density are explored. In the case of feed medium densities, the data has shown that in some circumstances changing the feed medium density using a "wrong" method can lead to unstable cyclone operation, higher cut points and thus loss of saleable coal.