Technogenic coal deposits: Actual status and processing prospects

Abstract

Russia is one of the world leaders in coal production and processing. The coal industry has accumulated about 15 billion t of man-made solid wastes. The dumps of coal-fired thermal power plants contain about 1.7 billion t of ash and slag waste. Rational solving of the problem of efficient use of industrial waste depends on a number of factors, namely, material composition of waste, its aggregative state, quantity, technological characteristics, etc. The problem of non-waste technologies has ecological, resource saving, technological and technical, economical and organizational aspects. There have been determined the areas of efficient use, technical requirements and innovative trends in the processing of technogenic coal deposits, main economical and technological conditions of processed wastes use as energy materials, in the production of construction materials, for recovery of alumina, rare and precious metals, production of ferroalloys, in the agriculture and others. The economical and technological conditions of cost-effective industrial implementation of processes of using slimes as fuel, e.g. slimes processing into water-coal fuel and fuel-slime briquettes have been substantiated. A problem of both ecological and economical value of coal recovery from coal-bearing overburden at surface coal mines has been solved. The prospective viability of ash and slag waste separation into organic and mineral components by flotation with a preliminary separation of aluminosilicate microspheres has been proved experimentally. A classified list of areas for the utilization of ash and slag waste of thermal power plants has been suggested.