Effect of Leaching High Ash Coal by Hydrofluoric Acid and EDTA on Removal of Mineral Matter and Sulphur

Abstract

Demineralization of coal was carried out using EDTA and HF. The residual coal from each treatment was characterized together with virgin coal using Scanning Electron Microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX). An elemental analyzer was adopted to analyze CHNS on virgin and residual coal sample. The current research compares the leaching efficiency of a mild leachant and a strong leachant. The final analysis showed that the coal under study was subbituminous coal and leaching could improve the amount of carbonaceous material. It was observed that with HF leaching aluminates silicates and calcites are removed completely where as only feaces of sulphur remained. With EOTA leaching only calcium was removed. The Carbon content is increased to 77.461 from 60.121.