Charcoal deashing by an oil agglomeration process: effect of various operating parameters

Abstract

This paper describes our attempt to transfer current knowledge on mineral coal deashing by selective oil agglomeration to charcoal. The effects of various operating variables, e.g. particle size, conditioning, oil dose, oil type, amount of volatile matter and time of agglomeration were studied. It was found that a ratio of 0.2% hydrochloric acid (32% concentrated) to charcoal and a 5 min conditioning time are ideal for deashing. Domestic fuel oil and crude palm oil were used as bridging liquids. The results show that by reducing the particle size (8 μm mean diameter), charcoal can be deashed to as low as 0.8% in weight, whilst recovery stay virtually at 100%. The use of charcoal with a high volatile matter content (more than 20%) allows easy deashing even with larger particle sizes (15 μm diameter). © 1995, All rights reserved.