A simple thermodynamic analysis suggests that oil can spontaneously displace water from coal’s surface if the coal particle has a water contact angle greater than 90°. However, the clean coal products obtained from laboratory-scale dewatering-by-displacement (DbD) test work assayed moistures substantially higher than expected. These high moisture contents were attributed to the formation of wat...

The combustion of coal in power plants generates solids (e-g., fly ash, bottom ash) and flue gas (e.g., SOX, C02). New Clean Air Act mandated reduction of SOX emissions from coal burning power plants. As a result, a variety of Clean Coal Technologies (CCT) are implemented to comply with these amendments. However, most of the CCT processes transfer environmentally sensitive elements (e.g., As, C...

The 491 U.S. coal-fired power plants are the largest unregulated industrial source of mercury emissions nationwide, annually emitting about 48 tons of mercury—a toxic element that poses health threats, including neurological disorders in children. In 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that mercury emissions from these sources should be regulated, but the agency has not s...

403 The Journal of The South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy JULY/AUGUST 2003 Introduction Coal preparation is used to upgrade run-ofmine coal before it is utilized by the end-user, primarily electric utility power plants. According to Fonseca1, the coal preparation process reduces the amount of noncombustible mineral impurities, acid-rain precursor sulphur-bearing minerals and hazar...

The Wabash River Coal Gasification Repowering Project (WRCGRP), a joint venture between Dynegy Power Corp., and PSI Energy, Inc., began commercial operation in November of 1995. The Project, selected by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) under the Clean Coal Program (Round IV) represents the largest operating coal-gasification combined-cycle plant in the world. This demonstration proj...