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Abstract
Fine coals such as mine dust, slack coal, washing rejects and slurries are treated by methods usingflotation, oil agglomeration and flocculation, hydrophobic flocculation flotation. In this work, the hydrophobic flocculation flotationhas been used to treat fine coal particles below 75 µm. Finally the parameters studied in this work are dosage of non-polar oil addition, effect of pH, with change in pulp density. We have used kerosene as non-polar oil in case of hydrophobic flocculation flotation. Results reveal that the hydrophobic flocculation could be greatly enhanced by adding a little amount of non-polar oil. For finer size range this technique is more useful to recover valuable minerals and also to remove impurities associated with the coal. The results from both the methods were compared on the basis of parameters like % Ash Rejection (AR), % Combustible recovery (CMR), % Yield. Also the process has been compared with conventional flotation process. At constant collector dose (CD) of 0.5kg/ton, %Ash is varying from 19.54% to 17.54%, similarly for 0.75kg/ton values varying from 19.27% to 16.27% and for 1 kg/ton values vary from 19.91% to 16.56%.