Optimizing Chemical Cost in Fine Coal Flotation at Bhelatand Coal
Preparation Plant
Tata Steel Limited- Bhelatand Coal Preparation Plant
Sanjay Kumar Singh, Atul Bhatnagar, M.P Sinha, Shashi Ranjan and Pallav Garg*
Nalco Water India Ltd., India
Rahul Kar and Md Zahid Ahmad
ABSTRACT
Froth Flotation is undoubtedly one of the most critical processes in coking coal washing plants. This work
carried out at Bhelatand Coal Preparation Plant of Tata Steel was with an objective of cost optimization in
fine coal processing. The sources of raw coal for the plant include coal from underground mines of Jharia
coalfield and procured open-cast raw coal. Coal from different sources vary in quality and possess different
floatability characteristics.
Synthetic collector is being used in plant as a flotation reagent. An alternate collector with new chemistry
was developed for reducing total treatment cost without compromising product yield and quality. A series
of laboratory tests were conducted to assess the performance of various sources of raw coal and plant scale
trial was started. At first, the new generation coal collector was entirely substituted with the existing
collector in the laboratory scale. However the plant scale trial data was not in accordance with laboratory
results and indicated inferior flotation performance
The issue was studied and data based conclusions were drawn that the new generation collector aids faster
and uncontrollable kinetics. A decision was taken for co-dosing of the synthetic and new collector for the
second phase of the trial. A detailed laboratory analysis was done again and few dosing ratios that predicted
optimum results were selected for plant trial. The dosing ratio was optimised as per flotation yield and product
ashes during the plant trial. The results showed significant improvement from the first phase and optimum dosing
rates were decided based on plant observations and data collection. The influence of various process indicators
including water quality, feed and product ashes and process yield was studied during all the trials and promising
results were established. The co-dosing of both the collectors conferred cost advantage and enabled to achieve
superior performance.
Keywords: Flotation, collector, kinetics, co-dosing, yield
*Corresponding author: Pallav Garg, Manager (Operations), Bhelatand Coal Preparation Plant, Tata Steel,
Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India. Pin code: 828103. Phone: +91 9263187437.Email: pallav.garg@tatasteel.com