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Monitoring

On-Line Raw Coal Monitoring

On-line analysis of raw coal is designed to:

Reduce washing costs by minimising the amount of dilution fed to the washery, by giving prompt feedback to the mine face.
Provide advance warning to washery operators of quality variations, which may require alteration to plant settings or a change in coal being mined or reclaimed.
Provide real time feedback to allow operators to optimise the plant, to maximise yield or to meet specifications.
Provide the washery with reliable data to assist in calculating yields on a shift or monthly basis, and to allow comparison with predicted product quality, based on the mine plan or borehole drilling.

Minimising dilution provides major cost savings in mining, transport and washery operating costs. In some seams, or when operating under mining conditions where the roof or floor are difficult to identify by operators, dilution can become a major cause of reduced yield. Increased dilution in the washery feed places additional demands on the washery circuits, increases the amount of reject material to be removed and reduces the production of saleable tonnes.

The actual quality of raw coal delivered for processing at the coal preparation plant is often difficult to predict. In-situ quality of the coal to be mined is usually determined from analyses of cores, blast hole chips or strip samples. However, the coal actually delivered to the plant can be a variable blend from several faces and working sections within a mine, each containing variable amounts of non-coal dilution and a range of moisture levels. Historical trends can be determined by sampling and testing the plant feed, but there is no substitute for real time knowledge of ROM ash and moisture levels to optimise plant settings to maximise yield.

COALSCAN on-line coal quality analysis systems now provide an economical method to determine the quality of coal actually delivered in real time. This means that important information, such as washery yield, is now available to washery management, based on actual data from the coal that has been actually delivered to the ROM for processing, rather than estimated quality data predicted from the mine plan.