Beneficiation of fine coal (+500 μm –2000 μm) is a worldwide problem in the mining industry, especially dry beneficiation of fine coal. Coal beneficiation can be divided primarily into two methods, namely wet- and dry beneficiation. Wet beneficiation methods are utilized more in today‘s industry because of the sharp separation efficiency that can be achieved. These processes include wet jigging, dense medium cyclones, spiral beneficiation etc. Due to the lack of a sufficient water supply in some regions around the world including South Africa, dry beneficiation methods are becoming more popular. Recent mechanized mining methods caused the fraction of fines from coal mines to increase over the years. However, due to old inefficient technologies, coal fines contained in slurry ponds could not be beneficiated and had to be discarded. One new dry beneficiation technology that has been used and researched extensively is the fluidized dense medium bed (FDMB) technology. The purpose of this study is to determine whether fine coal can be successfully beneficiated with a FDMB. It also has to be determined whether adding magnetite and introducing a jigging (pulse) motion to the air feed will increase the separation efficiency of the fluidization process. Witbank seam 4 and a Waterberg coal was used in experiments during this study. A coarse (+1180 μm –2000 μm), fine (+500 μm –1180 μm) and a mix of the two samples were prepared and tested. It was found that adding magnetite to the feed of the fluidized bed did not increase the separation efficiency. However, previous studies indicated the opposite results with regards to magnetite addition. The difference in results obtained could be prescribed to the ultrafine nature of the magnetite and the small coal particles size range used. If the presence of fine particles in the bed increases, the stability of fluidization decreases. In turn, the separation efficiency of the process decreases. Subjecting the feed air flow to a pulsating motion did not have a significant effect on separation. Good results were still obtained with jigging experiments, although not better than with normal fluidization. Stratification of coal particles according to quality was evident by the results obtained during experiments. The quality of coal increases from the bottom to the top of the bed. Overall the fluidized bed, in the absence of magnetite, was found to be a sufficient de-ashing process and further research on this technology could be very beneficial to the coal industry. / MIng (Chemical Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Beneficiation of fine coal (+500 μm –2000 μm) is a worldwide problem in the mining industry, especially dry beneficiation of fine coal. Coal beneficiation can be divided primarily into two methods, namely wet- and dry beneficiation. Wet beneficiation methods are utilized more in today‘s industry because of the sharp separation efficiency that can be achieved. These processes include wet jigging, dense medium cyclones, spiral beneficiation etc. Due to the lack of a sufficient water supply in some regions around the world including South Africa, dry beneficiation methods are becoming more popular. Recent mechanized mining methods caused the fraction of fines from coal mines to increase over the years. However, due to old inefficient technologies, coal fines contained in slurry ponds could not be beneficiated and had to be discarded. One new dry beneficiation technology that has been used and researched extensively is the fluidized dense medium bed (FDMB) technology. The purpose of this study is to determine whether fine coal can be successfully beneficiated with a FDMB. It also has to be determined whether adding magnetite and introducing a jigging (pulse) motion to the air feed will increase the separation efficiency of the fluidization process. Witbank seam 4 and a Waterberg coal was used in experiments during this study. A coarse (+1180 μm –2000 μm), fine (+500 μm –1180 μm) and a mix of the two samples were prepared and tested. It was found that adding magnetite to the feed of the fluidized bed did not increase the separation efficiency. However, previous studies indicated the opposite results with regards to magnetite addition. The difference in results obtained could be prescribed to the ultrafine nature of the magnetite and the small coal particles size range used. If the presence of fine particles in the bed increases, the stability of fluidization decreases. In turn, the separation efficiency of the process decreases. Subjecting the feed air flow to a pulsating motion did not have a significant effect on separation. Good results were still obtained with jigging experiments, although not better than with normal fluidization. Stratification of coal particles according to quality was evident by the results obtained during experiments. The quality of coal increases from the bottom to the top of the bed. Overall the fluidized bed, in the absence of magnetite, was found to be a sufficient de-ashing process and further research on this technology could be very beneficial to the coal industry. / MIng (Chemical Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014