ABSTRACT

In this study, the effect of dispersant addition on separation of sulphur from coal by CARPCO High Intensity Magnetic Separator is investigated. An artificial test sample used in the tests was prepared by adding pure pyrite to the coal which assayed 2.76 % ash and 0.27 % total sulphur. All the tests were carried out with the artificial coal sample containing 3.0 % total sulphur with −38 μ in size. Parameters such as % solids in the pulp, current intensity and conditioning time were investigated without any dispersant addition to determine the efficiency of magnetic separation at optimum conditions. Consequently, a clean coal product was obtained with sulphur content of 1.75 % and sulphur removal of 45.5 %. The effect of dispersant addition was found to have a pronounced effect on separation of sulphur from coal by magnetic separation. Upon addition of different dispersants, an increase of nearly 17.0 % on sulphur removal was obtained. The sulphur content of clean coal in the presence of dispersant was 1.44 % as opposed to 1.75 % in tests without any dispersant addition.