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POSSIBLE USES OF COAL IN CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Mihai Cruceru

Abstract

Even if the European Commission estimates that the end-of-life recycling input rate for coking coal is zero, some initiatives proved that coal could play a role in circular economy. Coal-fired power plants still play a significant role in electricity generation although a lot of renewables were developed. Coal combustion produces a relatively small amount of fly ash that is used in cement factories and a large amount of bottom ash that cannot be used in industry because its high carbon content. From this point of view, the bottom ash carbon residue is an unwanted component, which should be reduced by an optimized combustion process (although the use of modern low-NOx burners rather complicates the effort to reduce it) or by efficient separation techniques. The article presents the procedures used in CHARPHITE project to separate the bottom ash in two products: concentrated unburned carbon and inorganic matter with low carbon content. Gravimetric, magnetic and dimensional methods were used as simple or combined procedures for coal separation. The efficiency of each procedure and the characteristics of the separated products are pointed out in tables and charts. The concentrated unburned carbon can be recirculated to the boiler furnace or can be used to produce lignite-coke briquettes, absorbents, substitute of natural graphite and so on; the inorganic material was used in a lot of trials as substitute for natural aggregates in building materials industry.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2018/4.2/s18.015

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