Interaction mechanism of flocculants with coal waste slurry

Coal tailings are the inevitable by-product of coal mining and preparation plants, and often are problematic in terms of dewatering and solid-liquid separation. The interaction of multi-component fine coal tailings with various coagulants and flocculants are important in dewatering processes. Tunçbilek coal preparation plant wastes are composed of 81% inorganic solids with negative surface charges dominating at all pHs. The highest settling rate and turbidity values without flocculant are obtained at natural pH of 8.3 due to the presence of inorganic ions in the suspension particularly Mg²⁺and Ca²⁺that act as natural coagulants. Additon of medium and low charge density anionic flocculants with high molecular weight at natural pH produced higher settling rates at lower dosages than nonionic and cationic flocculants. It shown that the charge density of anionic flocculants has a significant effect on both settling rate and supernatant turbidity, also the settling rate increases with increasing the degree of anionicity. Anionic flocculants having high molecular weight and high anione charge density produced flocs at sufficient size necessary for settling conditions, yet anionic flocculants having low charge density were more effective in the clarification of suspensions containing clay minerals of high stability. The multivalent ions act as a bridge between negatively charged coal, quartz and clay minerals with anionic groups (-CH₂-(CH-CO)-COO groups) of the polymer. Non-ionic flocculants required higher dosages than other flocculants to achieve equivalent settling rates; though excellent turbidity values were obtained in most common pH values. Cationic flocculants of higher charge densities (%70) achieved good settling rates and low supernatant turbidities (9.9 NTU) at natural pH for a dosage of 119.7 g/t-solids flocculant. An interaction mechanism of each polymer type with different components of the tailings is proposed.