Recovery of coal from fine tailings of a coal washing plant using centrifugal gravity separators

Lignite coal is one of the important domestic sources of Turkey, for this reason effective exploitation of the coal reserves of Turkey is very crucial. Gravity concentration of hard lignites using conventional separation equipment is prone to produce coal rich fine tailings. In Turkey the fine tailings of lignite processing plants are sent mostly to tailings ponds without efficient further treatment. The losses of recoverable amount of fine coal are estimated about one million t/year. In some cases low quality fine coal is recovered by cyclones or directly from tailing ponds. However, fine coal losses are still considerably high. In last decades, new technological processes and devices have been developed for fine coal processing such as MGS, Falcon Concentrator, Kelsey Jigs, Column flotation. This study aims to recover clean coal from tailings of a lignite processing plant using MGS and Falcon Concentrator.