Solutions

Optimising Coal Washeries using On-Line Analysis

• Give advance warning to operators about changes in raw coal feed quality. Any significant changes can be remedied, by altering the blend of the coal which is being fed to the plant from the mine or the raw coal stockpile.

• Identify periods of higher quality coal, which may not require washing, thus saving costs, reducing moisture and increasing yield.

• Assist operators in selecting operating parameters, such as density and cutpoints, for the plant. This decision making can be updated regularly as the coal is produced, rather than several hours after the product coal is stockpiled, when analysis becomes available.

• Give operators real time feedback on the quality of the product coal, and on cumulative quality of the production lot compared to specification. This permits fine tuning of the washery over the remaining tonnes in the lot, ensuring that penalties are avoided whilst maximising yield. Real time product analysis allows significant product quality deviations to be detected as they occur. Corrective actions can be initiated immediately, rather than after shift analyses become available several hours, even days, later. 

• Provide input to the optimum placement of coal in the stockpile, to permit blending with the minimum amount of rehandle. 

• Avoid major penalties from deliveries of out of specification coal. Even a short period of out of specification production can require major adjustments to the washery settings to make the rest of the shipment considerably better than specification, so that the whole lot meets the customer requirements. This can have a major impact on overall plant yield and production costs. Real time information can avoid these costly problems.