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US 4,539,010 AGranted
Coal preparation
AssigneesAustralia Limited, The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited
InventorsDavid E. Mainwaring, Charles U. Jones
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AssigneesAustralia Limited, The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited
InventorsDavid E. Mainwaring, Charles U. Jones
Estimating the term…
A method of preparing fine particulate coal for power generation on which the coal is pretreated by the oil agglomeration method (10, 11) to increase the carbonaceous content and produce coal-oil agglomerates. These are fed to a fluidized bed (15) in which the fluid is steam. The bed as concentration is variable and agglomerates leaving the bed are disintegrated in a steam jet (21) which completes separation of the oil from the coal and forms the fine particle coal feed. The oil and steam are separated from the coal feed which continues in the fuel delivery system 29 to the power generation plant. The only steam mix is condensed 37 and the two phases separated (39) and recycled for further use. A control means is provided which is responsive to steam generation demand and activates changes in the generation of coal oil agglomerates (10, 11) and the discharge of coal particles from the fluid bed, disintegrator 15, 21.
A method of preparing fine particulate coal for use in power generation which comprises crushing mined coal into small sized particles, wetting said fine coal particles with a hydrocarbon liquid and forming carbonaceous agglomerates of said fine particles, separating said carbonaceous agglomerates from non-carbonaceous material present in said coal, passing said agglomerates into a fluidized bed which is fluidized with steam in the absence of oxygen to remove a portion of said hydrocarbon liquid, subsequently passing said treated agglomerates into a high velocity stream of steam to disintegrate said agglomerates into fine particles of coal and remove a further portion of said hydrocarbon liquid, and subsequently separating out said fine coal particles and condensing said steam and hydrocarbon liquid to allow recovery and recycling of said hydrocarbon liquid.
An apparatus for preparing fine coal particles for use in power generation, comprising means for feeding coal-hydrocarbon liquid agglomerates to a fluidized bed, said fluidized bed having at its lowest part an inlet for steam and in its upper portion an inlet for said coal agglomerates and an outlet for agglomerates intermediate the height of said fluidized bed, said outlet feeding said treated agglomerates into a tubular conveyor having a high velocity steam inlet at one end and a means for separating out fine coal particles from said steam at the other end.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.