(58u) Dissolution Mechanism of Silica and Alumina Minerals By the Chemical Leaching of High Ash Indian Coal

Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel and cheapest energy source in the world. Coal plays a vital role in the global energy demand, especially through power generation. The hard coal reserves are gradually depleting, and the mining operation at deeper coal seam with greater difficulties as well as the cost of exploration is so high, which has a significant issue for plant economics. So to minimize the problems instead the low grade coal can be used as an alternative energy source. Low-grade coals could be important to both the energy demand and economic development for the industries. Chemical cleaning techniques is an efficient method for to remove the organic and inorganic minerals without affecting the carbon content of coal. A method was devised for the removal of deleterious minerals and trace elements from the low-grade coals. An attempt has been made in this investigation to study the effect of leaching concentration and kinetics of dissolution major minerals constituent (especially silica and alumina) from low-grade coal was studied. The low-grade coal was selected from Mahanadi Coalfield of Odisha, India. The coal sample (250 µm particle size) was treated with 10 to 40 by wt% of caustic concentration at 60 ºC to 120 ºC for 2 h. The investigation results showed that the degree of demineralization was improved with increase concentration; which reduces the ash content above 50% by the caustic leaching effect. Apart the leaching study, the chemistry of demineralization was evaluated from the X- ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer. Throughout the research study challenges the chemical cleaning of low grade coal has been efficient techniques for reducing the minerals to a minimum level that can be upgraded to high rank coal.