Pilot test of possibility of enrichment of lignite by X-ray sensor sorting technology

1. POSSIBILITY OF LIGNITE ENRICHMENT BY
DRY X-RAY SENSOR SORTING
TECHNOLOGY
Aca Jovanovic1, Andreas Jungmann2, Mile Bugarin3
1Faculty of Project and Innovation Management Belgrade, and GLOBAL Innovation Projects
d.o.o. Belgrade , Serbia,
2Faculty of Georesources and Materials Engineering, Aachen, and and CALA
Aufbereitungstechnik GmbH & Co. KG, Aachen, Germany Germany,
3 Mining and Metallurgy Institute Bor, Serbia
The 48th International October Conference on Mining
and Metallurgy
September 28 - October 01, 2016, Bor (Serbia)
www.ioc.tfbor.bg.ac.rs

2. The 48th International October Conference on Mining and Metallurgy
September 28 - October 01, 2016, Bor (Serbia)
www.ioc.tfbor.bg.ac.rs
Introduction
11/27/2016 2
Dry processing of coal offers a number of advantages to the coal industry. No water
is required to dry-process coal which is a very important consideration in a water-
scarce country. Also, the pollution potential of dry processing is significantly lower
than that of conventional coal processes since no slurry results from the process
[1].
X-ray transmission (XRT) technology is capable of dry deshaling large coal in the
range of 10 mm to 120 mm [2].
It is a particle-by-particle technique in which a single layer thickness of coal
particles is allowed to fall through a chute equipped with an x-ray source at the one
side and an x-ray detector on the other. This arrangement allows each particle to be
exposed to x-rays and the amount of x-ray energy absorbed by the particle to be
measured by the detector

3. The 48th International October Conference on Mining and Metallurgy
September 28 - October 01, 2016, Bor (Serbia)
www.ioc.tfbor.bg.ac.rs
11/27/2016 3

4. The 48th International October Conference on Mining and Metallurgy
September 28 - October 01, 2016, Bor (Serbia)
www.ioc.tfbor.bg.ac.rs
11/27/2016 4
Lighter particles (coal) will reflect as a lighter image. These images are used by the
computer software to classify the particles into coal and shale based on the degree
of x-ray absorption of each particle, like is shown in figure 1. [2,3]. Dual energy X-
ray transmission for online size, density and composition control is used, to avoid
the effect of the thickness of the particle on accuracy of density measurement

5. The 48th International October Conference on Mining and Metallurgy
September 28 - October 01, 2016, Bor (Serbia)
www.ioc.tfbor.bg.ac.rs
11/27/2016 5
PILOT TEST OF POSSIBILITY OF LIGNITE ENRICHMENT
The basic data of the Pilot test are:
• Type of the machine: STEINERT X-Ray Separator XSS 100 400 V12U",.
• Nozzle grid resolution: 12 mm,
• Sorting parameter MD=50 % (particles with 50 % or more of “bad pixels” are
rejected like waste)
• Minimum Area which is accepted for computing=100 px

6. The 48th International October Conference on Mining and Metallurgy
September 28 - October 01, 2016, Bor (Serbia)
www.ioc.tfbor.bg.ac.rs
11/27/2016 6
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Feed
Cleaned Coal
Waste

7. The 48th International October Conference on Mining and Metallurgy
September 28 - October 01, 2016, Bor (Serbia)
www.ioc.tfbor.bg.ac.rs
11/27/2016 7

8. The 48th International October Conference on Mining and Metallurgy
September 28 - October 01, 2016, Bor (Serbia)
www.ioc.tfbor.bg.ac.rs
11/27/2016 8
Results of laboratory testing

9. The 48th International October Conference on Mining and Metallurgy
September 28 - October 01, 2016, Bor (Serbia)
www.ioc.tfbor.bg.ac.rs
11/27/2016 3