JOURNAL PAPER

Process design of the Phola coal preparation plant

G.M. Cresswell

DRA Mineral Projects Ltd, South Africa

SYNOPSIS

The 2 360 t/h two module Phola coal preparation plant represents a new era of large plant in the Witbank coalfield designed to extend its life to 2020 and beyond. The plant uses the optimum processing model for Witbank coals, receiving a feed coal size of -50 mm, wet screening it into coarse and small coal fractions 50 x 12 and 12 x 0.63 mm before processing them in parallel through two primary DM cyclone sections, in order to make a 27.5 MJ/kg export floats product. The sinks are processed through a common high density DM cyclone section to produce a 21.5-23 MJ/kg thermal coal middlings product. The plant design incorporates the largest size DMS equipment used to date in South African coal preparation plants, i.e. 1 150 mm large diameter pump fed DM cyclones and 4.2 m width banana screens. The fine coal is conventionally processed by spirals, whereas the raw coal slimes are filtered using automated plate and frame filter presses and added to either the middlings or discards depending on its quality. The paper describes the database, innovative design concepts, construction, and commissioning.

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References

CRESSWELL, G.M., and SALTER, M. Design of a new era of DMS Coal Preparation Plants for the South African Witbank Coalfield. Proceedings of the XVth International Coal Preparation Conference, Beijing: China National Coal Association. 2006.         [ Links ]

DE KORTE, J. Report on an efficiency test conducted on the Phola Coal Preparation Plant 31 March 2010. CSIR Report, Pretoria. 2010.         [ Links ]