ABSTRACT
Treatment of wastes became an urgent problem which needs to have more concern. The treatment of wastes and reuse of their constituents should be considered from environmental and economical point of view. The refuse of El-Maghara coal washing plant, in northern Sinai, Egypt, was one of these wastes which contains a considerable amount of coal fines and huge amount of clay. The main objective of this work is to recover the coal fines from these wastes by flotation as a first step and then prepare the residual clay to be used for the brick industry as a second step. The effect of different operating parameters on recovery of coal fines from these wastes was investigated. A brick model was prepared by using the residual clay. The mechanical properties of such model were determined. The experimental results showed the recovery of about 80% of coal and the possibility of using the residual clay in making building bricks.
