Coal reverse flotation. Part II: Cleaning of a subbituminous coal

Reverse flotation of a subbituminous coal was investigated and it turned out that a large amount of DTAC was needed in this process. The application of the zero-conditioning time method along with the use of PAM significantly reduced DTAC consumption from over 6 kg/t down to 1.375 kg/t.Dextrin was necessary to improve the selectivity. The addition of a dispersant (tannic acid) improved further the quality of concentrate. The concentrate ash content of 16.7% at 50.4% yield was obtained for the feed ash content of 34.6%. Although this gives only about 64% combustible recovery, since the inherent ash content for this coal was determined to be 10% the room for further improvement is very limited.The best separation was obtained around a natural pH of 7.5–8.4 for this coal.