Technological and ecological aspects of briquettes production on the basis of coal wastes in Upper-Silesian Coal Basin

Abstract

The problem of coal waste management has been a local issue for many years, due to the updates of environmental laws that enforce the fulfillment of stringent requirements. Recent years have brought fundamental changes in the approach to waste management, which result in implementation of new technologies and methods, which allows re-use more coal waste. Making efforts to minimize the deposit of waste in settling ponds or in spoil tips are resulting in growing tendency to use coal mining waste in production of alternative fuels (including the briquettes). This paper will present an analysis of the current situation and scenarios that will allow to fulfill the directives related to coal waste management. Selected evaluation criteria, covering the most important technological and environmental issues, from the point of authors view, will identify the possibilities of implementing different types of solutions in a variety of conditions, e.g.: • the possibility of coal wastes preparation into a briquette, • the ways of using briquettes in industry and households, • required parameters of coal waste fuel, • products of burning briquettes with the chosen technology, • ability to implement solutions in local conditions.