EVALUATION OF COAL RESIDUES (COAL SLIMES) RESULTING FROM THE ENRICHMENT OF TURKISH LIGNITES

The most important issue is the efficient use of coal reserves, which have an important place among energy resources in Turkey as in the whole world, in economic and environmental terms. This necessitates coal washery, which ensure the enrichment of low quality coals. Approximately 95% of Turkey's coal reserves consist of lignite coal and 65% of this is low quality lignite with a calorific value of 2000 kcal/kg. For this reason, coal preparation processes come into play in order to obtain higher quality energy raw materials from these reserves. As it is known, the coal enrichment process is generally done by wet methods, heavy media separators, jigs, spiral, Kelsey jigs, etc. Gravity separators are widely used. Although the most important issue in these processes is the units in which fine sized coal is enriched, especially the slurry coals obtained after the enrichment process under 1 or 0.5mm size pose significant problems. It is an environmental and economic necessity to reuse this waste material, which constitutes 20-25% of the total feed, due to the highwater content and high amount of coal it contains. In the facilities that have the most important lignite reserves in Turkey and were established for the purpose of enriching the coal in Kütahya and Soma regions, especially coal slimes under 0.5 mm in size have been stored in these regions since the past, and large residual ponds have been created. It is a current issue to store the residues in these waste ponds by adapting them to environmental regulations and to bring the coal in its composition back into the economy. For this reason, within the scope of this study, samples taken from 3 ponds in the Tunçbilek basin and coal slime samples obtained from a facility in Soma were used. Characterization studies of these slimes were carried out and enrichment studies were carried out by classification according to size. As a result of the studies carried out, coal with a calorific value of around 3000 kcal/kg can be produced from Soma coal slimes, while coals with a high calorific value such as 5000-5500 kcal/kg can be obtained from Tunçbilek slime ponds.