GB1469319A - Transporting of coal-liquid slurries - Google Patents

Abstract

1469319 Coal slurries MARATHON OIL CO 21 June 1974 [5 July 1973] 27720/74 Heading C5G Coal is transported as a slurry in a carrier medium by grinding the coal to an average diameter of less than 150 microns such that at least 95% of the coal will pass through a 14 Tyler mesh screen, heating the ground coal to at least 150‹ C. for a sufficient time to remove at least 40 wt. per cent of the "bound" water content of the coal, slurrying the dry, ground coal in the carrier medium to a concentration of 5-90 wt. per cent of the coal and therafter transporting the slurry. At least 70 wt. per cent of the "free" water may be removed before grinding. The carrier medium may be water, crude oil, refined fractions thereof, e.g. gasoline, and jet fuel or partially refined fractions thereof, e.g. gasoline, gas oils, naphthas, and kerosene. After grinding and drying, but before slurrying, the coal may be pelletized or otherwise agglomerated. Surfactants may be present in the slurry. In the ease of an organic carrier medium, these may impart oleophobic or oleophilic properties to the coal, e.g. fatty acids, monovalent cation salts thereof, sorbitan monooleate or petroleum sulphonates. In the case of an aqueous carrier medium, the surfactant may impart hydrophilic or hydrophobic properties to the coal. The slurry may also contain chemical agents facilitating suspension of the coal particles, e.g. high molecular weight polymers. Viscosity-reducing and drag-reducing agents may also be present. The coal particles may be coated with gases, e.g. air, hydrocarbons containing up to 4 C atoms and natural gas or solid materials, e.g. inorganic and/or organic salts of the metals of groups II, III, IVa, V, VI, VII and VIII of the Mendeleef Periodic Table, synthetic resins, e.g. cellulose acetate, polystyrene, polyethylene, and polyvinylacetate, clay, kaolin, fuller's earth, other aluminium silicates, and limestone.