Rock Quarry Plant in South Africa

A Coal preperation plant, nestled among the mountains. Coal Preperation plants generally use gravity process equipment to separate the refuse from the product (coal). Coal has a specific gravity between 1.35 and 1.5, while the refuse rock has a Specific Gravity of 2.1 to 2.3. Heavy Media is the most popular method of cleaning coarse sizes, jig plants are Rock Crushing Plant probably the second most common method used for coarse coal. Heavy media cyclones are being used more often for fines size fractions. Flotation is generally used to clean the -28 mesh size fraction, although spirals and heavy media cyclones have shown success in cleaning down to 100 mesh coal feed. Spirals are generally used for middling sizes.

At this prep plant, all feed coal (ROM) is crushed to -2" before entering the plant circuits. The 2" x 10 mesh coal is screened and goes to the primary dense medium cyclone circuit. The 2" x 10 mesh coking coal is recovered from the refuse here. The middlings (-10 mesh x 60 mesh) are processed in the Secondary Dense Medium Cyclone Circuit to recover the coal here, this Quarry Crusher produces a higher ash coal and is used as steam coal. The coking coal product conveyor has an intermediate screen that enables material to be diverted in varying proportions to steam coal if necessary to enhance the coking properties.

The cleaned coal is dried in centrifuges and a belt filter press. Coarse rejects are crushed and then recombined with the fine tailings for disposal to the refuse fill. All ROM coal production is beneficiated in the coal preparation plant. Approximately 2,000,000 tonnes of cleaned coal is produced annually, with the plant processing about 3,000,000 tons of raw coal annually.To view a larger image of the Flowsheet, click on the text above the Flowsheet.

This graphic shows the general process of a coal plant. First, the mined coal is loaded into a stockpile, with a reclaim tunnel beneath it. Then, the coal is transported to a raw coal silo, usually 10,000 ton capacity, for feed to the plant at a constant rate. In this instance the first stage is a crushing/screening plant, with heavy media processing , spirals for the Quarry Crusher Plant middling sizes (10 mesh x 60 mesh), flotation for the -60 mesh fine coal feed. The cleaned coal is then transported to the next plant, which is a series of thermal dryers for reducing the moisture content and thereby raising the BTU value of the coal. The final dried coal product is then transported to the clean coal silo's for loading onto a train for transport to the end user. In this case, a steel mill and a steam power generation plant.