Development of a binder manufacturing process for molded coal utilizing used plastics

Abstract

Molded coal charging process into coke oven has been used to improve coal charging density. Molded coal charging process can improve coke strength even if the rank of blended coal is low. However, the molded coal is quite expensive because the cost of coal tar binder is high. Thus, we developed a new process that could reduce the amount of tar binder by utilizing used plastics. In this new process, used plastics were charged into heavy tar and dissolved at 200°C. The resulting binder with plastics could improve the strength of the molded coal, thus, coke was prepared experimentally using molded coal with the new binder. The drum strength of the molded coal with plastics binder was better than that of coke using conventional molded coke with heavy tar binder. Used plastics for the binder could reduce CO2 emissions from coke ovens. This new process is one of the suitable ways of recycling used plastics in steel works.