Performance Characteristics of Coal-Washing Equipment: Baum and Batac Jigs. Report of Investigation

摘要

The profitable operation of a coal preparation plant under today's stringent product standards and ever-rising costs requires that the preparation engineer continually strive for maximum recovery of salable coal. Reliable performance data are a prerequisite to the design of a new plant or to the expansion of existing facilities, and they serve as a yardstick with which the engineer may measure the performance of his plant. With these data and a washability analysis of the raw coal, the preparation engineer can make a rational choice of cleaning equipment. Also, actual, unbiased performance data gathered on the various unit operations from commercial plants are necessary in designing computer models that accurately simulate coal preparation operations. To obtain such performance data, the Coal Preparation Division of DOE's Pittsburgh Mining Technology Center has conducted equipment performance studies of the principal coal cleaning devices used in the United States. In this study three coarse-coal Baum jigs and two fine-coal Batac jigs were evaluated, in commercial coal preparation facilities, to determine typical cleaning performance. The Baum jigs effected good separations on 6-inch by 14-mesh coal at specific gravities of separation between 1.58 and 1.61; the distribution curves drawn for these devices yielded probable errors ranging from 0.087 to 0.161, and error areas from 64 to 95. The Batac jigs made comparable separations in treating 3/4-inch by 200-mesh coal at 1.75 and 1.82 specific gravities of separation; the respective probable errors were 0.123 and 0.109, and the respective error areas were 76 and 87. (ERA citation 06:010202)