Dense-Medium Beneficiation Of Fine Coal Revisited - Introduction

Dense-medium beneficiation of fine (minus 0.5 mm) coal is not a new concept and has been used in South Africa previously. The dense-medium fine coal plant at Greenside Colliery operated for almost 18 years and, despite proving a difficult plant to operate, did succeed in producing a fine coal product with a low ash content of 7%. No other beneficiation process available could achieve this. Dense-medium beneficiation of fine coal was also used in other countries, of which the plants at Homer City in the USA and Curragh in Australia were the best known. The first application of dense-medium cleaning of fine coal was, however, at the Tertre plant in Belgium1. This plant was built in 1957. About nine years later, a second fine coal dense-medium plant was built at the Winterslag Mine, also in Belgium. According to reports, this plant operated satisfactorily for a period of some 17 years.