Critical Material Recovery from Coal and Coal Byproducts

A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2022) | Viewed by 2736

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA
Interests: process circuit design and simulation; rare earth and critical mineral production; techno-economic analysis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of Minerals, we invite you to contribute an original research article to a Special Issue on critical material recovery from coal and coal byproducts. Challenges associated with both the resilience of conventional mineral supply chains as well as the demand for specialized technology materials have prompted the emergent importance of critical materials, including rare earth elements, cobalt, lithium, and many others. In an effort to diversify the supply chain, considerable private and public investment has been directed to the development of unconventional resources, notably including coal and coal byproducts. While knowledge on the occurrence and distribution of valuable trace elements in coal extends back several decades, only recent efforts have focused on the extraction and recovery of these materials. 

This Special Issue aims to report recent technological developments and state-of-the-art processing approaches for the extraction of critical materials from coal and coal products. Articles should address one or more coal-based material types, including coal, coal refuse, coal combustion byproducts, underclays and shales, preparation plant products, coal mine drainage, or other similar materials. In addition, articles may focus on the underlying science and/or engineering principles, including geochemical characterization, process development, innovative process circuitry, process waste characterization and remediation, techno-economic and life-cycle analyses, or similar study areas.

Dr. Aaron Noble
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • mineral processing
  • hydrometallurgy
  • process development
  • separations
  • rare earth elements
  • technology minerals
  • coal refuse
  • coal combustion byproducts
  • coal mine drainage

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

11 pages, 1548 KiB  
Article
Alumina and Silica Extraction and Byproduct Development Directly from Chemical Deashing of Coals
by Lijun Zhao
Minerals 2022, 12(2), 179; https://doi.org/10.3390/min12020179 - 29 Jan 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2240
Abstract
Coal ashes (minerals) could be chemically removed to produce ultraclean coals for advanced utilizations such as oil substitutes and electrode materials. To eliminate secondary pollution and reduce deashing cost, chemicals should be recycled and valuable byproducts developed, in addition to ultraclean coals. In [...] Read more.
Coal ashes (minerals) could be chemically removed to produce ultraclean coals for advanced utilizations such as oil substitutes and electrode materials. To eliminate secondary pollution and reduce deashing cost, chemicals should be recycled and valuable byproducts developed, in addition to ultraclean coals. In this work, an advanced alkali–acid (NaOH–HCl) chemical method featuring submolten salts was used to deash coals with high ash of 27.95%, and ultraclean coals were prepared with low ash of 0.62%. The alkali solutions after treating coals were regenerated by adding CaO, and the resulting precipitates were transformed into CaSO4 by adding dilute H2SO4, while alumina and silica were dissolved in acid solutions. The hydrochloric acid (HCl) after treating coals could be largely regenerated by evaporation. From concentrated solutions after evaporation, silica gels occurred with high purity, which were then filtered for the production of silicate fertilizer, highlighting low heavy metal content and Na2O. Concentrated H2SO4 was added into the remaining acid filtrate, and sulfates were precipitated and redissolved to remove CaSO4. By further two-step calcinations, alumina of high purity (98.6%) could be produced. Alumina and silica extraction and byproduct development from directly deashing the coals were compared with those from fly ashes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Material Recovery from Coal and Coal Byproducts)
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