Wet Concentration of Fine Coal (23952172-3333-4055-9aa6-93c34fa12456)

PART 1: DENSE MEDIUM SEPARATION by M. SOKASKI, M. R. GEER, and W. L. MCMORRIS III INTRODUCTION In the early days of coarse-coal treatment by the dense-medium process in Europe, loess was one of the materials used for medium solids. Newly developed cyclones were used to reclaim and thicken the loess suspension. On occasion, when the cyclone thickener at the Maurits mine in the Nether- lands plugged, the overflow was found to be filled with clean coal free of impurity. From this observation stemmed the concept of the cyclone as a cleaning device. Development took place during World War I1 in the lab- oratory of the Dutch State Mines under the direction of M. G. Driessen. A 15 tph (13.6 mt) pilot plant was in operation in the laboratory by 1945, when, in September, Driessen made the first public disclosure of the process in a paper presented to the Institute of fie1 in London. In April 1945 operation of this pilot plant was observed by H. F. Yancey, who was so