1. STUDIES ON MICROBIAL DESULPHURISATION OF COAL FROM
CHINAKURI MINES USING INDIGINEOUS CULTURE
INTRODUCTION
Coal is one of the world’s major sources of energy. In India, coal
provides almost 54% of the total energy consumed. Coal is a
mixture of organic compounds and mineral matter or impurities like
sulphur and iron. These impurities when burned form non
combustible residues known as ashes and volatile oxides of sulphur
and iron leading to environmental pollution. Therefore cleaning of
coal which constitutes of desulphurization, and coal processing
comprising of Depolymerization has to be done.
ABSTRACT
The present work describes about the isolation of microorganism from
the coal sample of Chinakuri mines, Eastern coalfields Ltd, West Bengal
and seeing the effect of bacterial culture on bioleaching of sulphur and
iron from respective coal sample and optimization of various parameters
like pH , particle size, slurry concentration,and temperature .The
various parameters were checked for different values and optimized
value at which maximum biodesulphurisation takes place was recorded
Rod shaped bacteria was observed on seeing under the microscope
The various optimized process parameters were found to be 101-150 um
particle size, 5% w/v slurry concentration,pH 1.9 and the temperature
was 300 C.
OBJECTIVE
To remove iron and sulphur from Chinakuri mines coal sample
Optimization of process variables for removal of iron and sulfur
Determination of sulphate :
To 1 ml of the sample,1 ml of 0.001M barium chloride solution , 2 ml of
glycerol -ethanol solution and 1ml of sodium chloride - hydrochloride acid
was added. The total volume was made upto 10ml in a standard flask with
distilled water. The blank was prepared as mentioned above without the
addition of the sample. The absorbance of the standard and the blank is read
using U3210 Hitachi UV-Visible spectrophotometer at 420nm.
The amount of sulphate in the sample was determined using standard graph
prepared with different concentration of sodium sulphate standard (0 -
100g/ml).
Determination of Iron (Ferron Assay):
1 ml of the sample was drawn from the shake flask and spun at 10,000 rpm for
5 minutes. To 100 l of the supernatant, 5 ml of ferron reagent (7-Iodo-8-
hydroxy-quinoline-5 sulfonic acid solution) was added.The blank was
prepared as mentioned without the addition of the sample .The absorbance
of the sample and the blank was read using U3210 Hitachi UV-Visible
spectrophotometer at 635 nm.
The amount of ferric in the sample was determined using standard graph
prepared with different concentration of ferric chloride standard (0-
150g/ml)
DR.W.RICHARD THILAGARAJ, Ph.D (Asst.Proffessor ,Department Of Biotechnology SRM University)
ASHWIN CHERIAN(10906030) MRIDU PURI ( 10906107 ) RUDRA NARAYAN SARANGI(10906129) SNEHA NIGAM(10906158) SOUMYA PANDEY(10906159) TULIKA CHOPRA(10906184)
MATERIALS AND METHOD
Structure of Coal
CHINAKURI MINES,INDIA
Chinakuri 1/2 pits is a colliery under Eastern coalfield
limited in West Bengal . It is about 1.5 square kilometer in
area and is situated at the bank of Damodar river. It has
population of about 8000.It has the deepest coal mines of
Asia.It is 2100 feets deep. The production capacity of the
mines is 300 tones per day. The coal sample from these
mines are semi coking Grade ‘A’ coal. The Coal from
these mines are supplied to the steel industries like
IISCO,Burnpur.
Optimization of parameters
Particle size
Slurry concentration
pH
Temperature
Mechanism:
Direct oxidation:
4FeS2 + 2H2O +15O2 MICROORGANISM
2Fe2(SO4)3 + 2H2SO4
Indirect Oxidation:
FeS2 + 14 Fe3+ +8 H2O ®
15 Fe2 + 2SO4
2- + 16H+
Fe2+ + 2H+ + ½O2 microorganism 2Fe3+ +
H2O
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8DAYS
CONCENTRATION(µg/ml)
Control (181-250mm) Expt.(181-250mm) Control (101-151mm)
Expt.(181-250mm) Control (54-90mm) Expt.(54-90mm)
0
5
10
15
20
25
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8DAYS
CONCENTRATION(µg/ml)
Control 1% Expt 1% Control 5%
Expt 5% Control 10% Expt 10%
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
DAYS
CONCENTRATION(µg/ml)
Control 30°C Expt. 30°C Control 35°C Expt. 35°C
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Optimized particle size 101-151 m
Optimized Slurry Conc. 5% w/v
Optimized pH 1.9
Optimized Temperature 300 C
Total Iron removal - 40.8%
Total Sulphur removal - 5.3 %
References:
1. Dhomodran R.K 1997:’Neyveli: lignite mine of Asia 2000
.Centre for Applied Research and Development (CARD-NLC)
publications Vol 7:pp 42-43.
2. Studies on the mechanism and kinetics of bioleaching
Minerals Engineering, Volume 12, Issue 4, April 1999, Pages 383-
392 A. W. Breed and G. S. Hansford
3. Chen,C., and D.Skidmore .1990.'Microbial desulphurization
with thermophilic microorganisms .In Bioprocessing and
Biotreatment of Coal'.Ed.D.l.Wise,New. Ed.D.l.Wise, New York:
Marcel Dekker,Inc, Inc. pp653
4. DSMZ catalog (1993) 5th Ed., pp. 384-387.
Acknowledgment:
Our Special Thanks To
Dr. K. Ramaswami, Dean
Dr. Mohd. Ali, HOD
Dr. W. Richard Thilagaraj Asst. Professor