Minerals Engineering 15 (2002) 727736 This article is also available online at: www.elsevier.

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A comparative evaluation of new ne particle size separation technologies

M.K. Mohanty *, A. Palit, B. Dube
Department of Mining and Mineral Resources Engineering, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA Received 27 February 2002; accepted 9 August 2002

Abstract The conventional technologies used in industrial operations to achieve ne size separations at 150 lm and below are inecient. To obtain precise ne size separations, the state of the art ne particle sizing technologies investigated in this study include the newly developed Pansep screen as well as a new design cyclone (gMaxTM ) with and without an apex water injection system (CyclowashTM ). The performance of a Pansep screen having a screening surface area of 0.5 m2 is evaluated for size separations at 150 lm and 45 lm particle sizes, whereas a 15 cm diameter gMax cyclone with and without a Cyclowash attachment is studied for particle size separation at 45 lm only. The results of this study indicate that the size separation performance obtained by the Pansep screen is signicantly better than the performance obtained from conventional technologies such as, cyclone and sieve bend for classifying the minus 1 mm particle size coal slurry at 150 lm. An excellent overall screening eciency of 98% is obtained from the Pansep screen in comparison to the 44% obtained from the sieve bend and 57% from the raw coal classifying cyclone operating in an Illinois coal preparation plant. For the 45 lm size separation, a conventional cyclone eciency of 37% is improved to 68% by the gMax cyclone, 70% with the use of Cyclowash attachment and to nearly 99% by the Pansep screening technology. The oversize throughput capacity of the Pansep screen for a particle size separation at 45 lm can be as high as 5 ton/h m2 without any signicant negative eect on the overall size separation eciency. No signicant deterioration in the overall screening eciency is noticed for the particle size separation at 150 lm while obtaining the same oversize throughput indicating the possibility of obtaining higher throughput rates for coarser size separations. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Screening; Classication; Sizing; Elutriation; Coal; Particle size

1. Introduction The physical separation processes utilized in coal preparation plants to clean ne coal are eective only over a specied particle size range of coal particles. The separation eciency of a given process is drastically aected beyond the optimum size range. For example, the conventional otation process achieves an eective separation in the 250 45 lm particle size range. The presence of ner ash forming minerals in the coal slurry aects the separation process and results in a lower product quality due to the well-known hydraulic entrainment problem. Another example relates to the

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-618-536-6637; fax: +1-618-4537455. E-mail address: mohanty@engr.siu.edu (M.K. Mohanty).

spiral concentrators that are known to achieve an ecient cleaning performance in the 1 mm 150 lm particle size range. A signicant amount of minus 150 lm size particles are often misplaced to the spiral feed stream due to the ineciency of the raw coal classication process in the plant. A majority of these ner particles are entrained to the product stream of the spiral concentrators along with the water and is ultimately rejected to the thickener as the sieve-bend underow. This phenomenon causes a loss of recoverable ne coal. Inecient particle size separation also hinders the commercialization of state of the art enhanced gravity separation technologies in coal preparation plants. Past studies have proven that these technologies eectively clean ne coal in the size range of 0.5 mm to 45 lm as an alternative to the otation process (Honaker et al., 1995; Luttrell et al., 1995; McAlister, 1998; Mohanty and

0892-6875/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 8 9 2 - 6 8 7 5 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 6 9 - 3

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Honaker, 1999; Riley et al., 1995; Venkatraman et al., 1995). These relatively low cost and high capacity separators may be used eectively to reject the coal pyrites while achieving a high energy recovery thus lowering the sulfur dioxide (SO2 ) emission potential of the medium to high sulfur Midwestern and Eastern US coals. However, the separation performance of the enhanced gravity separation deteriorates sharply below the particle size of 45 lm. The conventional cyclone classication process, which allows more than 30% of misplacement of ultrane high-ash materials will be severely detrimental to the overall product quality. Thus, achievement of a precise particle size-separation at 45 lm may expedite a successful commercialization of the enhanced gravity concentrators in the US coal industry. Several ne size separation technologies, both screening and classication, have been developed or redesigned during the last few years. These technologies include the Pansep screening technology developed in South Africa and Krebs Engineers gMax cyclone and an apex water injection device, commercially known as the Cyclowash. Brief descriptions of these technologies are provided in the following section.

absence of vibration, the screen cloth can be of any type without consideration of a need for toughness. This allows selecting a screen cloth that provides maximum percentage of open area and thus maximum screening rate. By screening on both forward and return runs, the throughput capacity of the Pansep screen is eectively doubled for the same oor space. The operating principle of the Pansep screen and its advantages over other screens are described in greater detail in other publications (Brown et al., 2000; Buisman and Reyneke, 2000). 1.2. gMax cyclone The gMax cyclone is a re-engineered cyclone design developed to produce ner and sharper cyclone separations at relatively high throughput capacity (Olson, 2001). This new cyclone type includes improved apex and conical section design as well as feed inlet and cylindrical section design to minimize the turbulence in the feed chamber and maximize the tangential velocity of the feed slurry in the critical separating zone of the cyclone. The increased tangential velocity results in a ner separation for a cyclone of the same diameter and reduced misplaced nes in the underow. The re-engineered inlet head area together with a longer vortex nder reduces the turbulence in the feed chamber and thus, reduces the misplacement of the coarser material to the overow of the cyclone. A more detailed discussion of the key features of gMax cyclone is provided elsewhere (Krebs website, 2001). The apex water injection system has been successfully studied in the past (Dahlstorm, 1954; Firth et al., 1998, 1995; Honaker et al., 2001a,b; Kelsall and Holmes, 1960; Patil and Rao, 1999) to reduce the ultrane particle misplacement to the underow stream of a cyclone. However, a majority of these studies have examined only the reduction in the ultrane bypass to the underow and the sharpness of the size separation indicated by the imperfection. The bypass of coarse material to the overow and the overall sizing eciency, which is a multiplication product of the oversize recovery to the underow and the undersize recovery to the overow, have received limited emphasis. The objective of this study was to evaluate these state of the art ne particle screening and classication technologies to improve the ne coal particle sizing eciency both at 150 and 45 lm separation sizes (d50c ). The overall sizing eciency is a single performance parameter, that reects the combined eect of all other performance parameters, such as, the sharpness of separation, imperfection, undersize bypass and oversize bypass at a desired d50c size. Hence eciency was used as a key response parameter while optimizing the individual units and also while conducting the comparative analyses. The results of this comparative study are described in this publication.

1.1. Pansep screen The Pansep screen is a unique screen design, in which the mesh panels travel in a linear path instead of vibrating at the same position. It consists of a chain and sprocket arrangement as shown in Fig. 1, in which the individually tensioned mesh pans are joined together to form a chain of mesh panels that travels in a linear path while screening the feed slurry. The screening of undersize particles is achieved under the action of water sprays both on the top and bottom of the mesh pans. Such spray arrangement provides the necessary uidization and stratication of the feed material on the screen pans and facilitates the undersize material to easily pass through the material bed and the mesh openings. Rectangular mesh screen openings are typically used to avoid the screen-blinding problem encountered in a ne screening operation. Due to the

Fig. 1. A schematic diagram of a Pansep screen.

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2. Experimental Bulk slurry samples used in this investigation were collected from three dierent process streams of an operating coal preparation plant Illinois. The process streams included the raw coal classifying cyclone feed and spiral product-VariSieve feed, both of nominally minus 1 mm particle size, and the secondary classifying cyclone feed streams of nominally 150 lm particle size. The rst two slurry samples were used for evaluating and optimizing the Pansep screen performance for 150 lm particle size (d50c ) separation. The third sample was used for evaluating the separation performance of both Pansep screen and gMax cyclone with and without the Cyclowash attachment for 45 lm particle size (d50c ) separation. The individual experimental circuits are illustrated in Fig. 2(a)(c). The experimental circuit for the Pansep evaluation was same for both size separations; however with dierent aperture size mesh panels:

100 400 lm for 150 lm separation and 50 200 lm for 45 lm size separation. Prior to the beginning of experiments, a desired amount of slurry sample was thoroughly mixed in a baed feed sump having a capacity of nearly 4000 liters and a representative feed sample was collected for subsequent analyses. Before introducing the feed slurry to the Pansep screen, the spray water was turned on and the Pansep mesh panels were set to motion at a desired speed. A magnetic slurry ow meter was used to monitor the volumetric slurry feed rate to the sizing device. Overow and underow samples were collected after allowing the screen to run for a few minutes to achieve a steady state condition. The same process was continued to conduct the subsequent tests while varying the desired parameters. Since there was an external source of water for Pansep screen operating in the form of water sprays on the mesh panels and for the Cyclowash in the form of injection water at the apex, the overow and underow

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the experimental circuits used to evaluate (a) the Pansep screen, (b) the gMax cyclone and (c) the gMax cyclone with the Cyclowash attachment.

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slurry could not be mixed to reconstitute the original feed sample. Instead, after each batch of tests the overow and underow were mixed in a settling tank as shown in the schematic layouts in Fig. 2 and allowed to settle for 2448 h to ensure a complete settling of all the solid particles. A calculated amount of supernatant water was then siphoned out to adjust the solid content to the desired level. The second pump in the circuit, which was used as a spray or injection water pump while conducting the experiments, is utilized to pump the coal slurry from the settling tank to the feed tank to begin the next series of tests. However, in the gMax cyclone testing without the Cyclowash attachment the use of settling tank was not required and the overow and underow slurry were mixed and recirculated in the system as the feed slurry.

3. Results and discussions At the outset of this experimental program, the three bulk samples collected from an operating coal preparation plant were separately homogenized. A representative sample was collected from each category to be analyzed for the mass contents in the individual size fractions. The mass distributions for the three samples in each size fractions are summarized in Table 1. As shown, the two samples used for the 150 lm size separation had nearly 63% and 75% of plus 150 lm size material, respectively, and the sample used for the 45 lm size separation had nearly 24% of plus 45 lm size material. 3.1. Size separation at 150 lm 3.1.1. Pansep screen optimization The Pansep screen was evaluated and the performance optimized to achieve a highly ecient separation at a d50c of 150 lm particle size. The woven wire mesh panels used for this study had rectangular aperture size of 100 400 lm. The Pansep screen was separately evaluated for the raw coal-classifying cyclone feed slurry

and the VariSieve feed slurry to quantify the potential improvement achievable in comparison to the performance currently achieved in the preparation plant. A 25-2 fractional factorial design was initially conducted to identify the key operating parameters for the Pansep screen followed by a Box-Behnken experimental design to optimize the screening eciency by systematically varying the operating parameters. The details of this optimization study will be reported in another publication. The key operating parameters for the Pansep screen identied during the fractional factorial experimental program included the volumetric feed ow rate, the angle of water spray, and the linear velocity of the mesh panels. The eects of these key process parameters on two important screening performance parameters, i.e., separation size (d50c ) and the overall screening eciency were studied. As shown in the perturbation diagrams in Fig. 3(a) and (b), water spray angle has the maximum eect on both separation size and the overall screening eciency. The force at which the water with greater spray angle intercepts the screen mesh is lower than when the sprays are vertically downward i.e., the spray with the minimum angle. Thus, the vertically downward water spray facilitates better drainage than the angular water spray. The remaining water that does not drain through the mesh within the available retention time reports to the overow stream and thus causes some ultrane particle entrainment (bypass). This phenomenon is believed to be resulting in decreased eciency. For the same reason, the eciency decreases with increasing volumetric feed ow rate. Similarly, the increasing screen velocity reduces the amount of retention time available for the water drainage to occur through the screen mesh and thus increases the amount of ultrane entrainment to the oversize product resulting in relatively lower eciency value. By having water spray at an angle, a relatively larger area of the screen mesh is covered by the water spray. In addition, the angular spray stirs-up the material layer on the screen surface to a greater extent than the vertically downward spray. This provides greater opportunity to the near-size material to pass through the screen mesh

Table 1 Size-by-size weight distribution of the samples collected from the three process streams of an operating coal preparation plant to be used in this investigation Size fraction (lm) >1000 1000595 595210 210149 14974 7444 <44 Total Weight (%) Raw coal cyclone 18.72 15.87 21.25 7.26 11.33 4.44 21.13 100.0 Spiral-VariSieve 8.84 29.8 25.4 11.4 6.3 3.4 14.9 100.0 Size fraction (lm) >149 149 74 74 44 44 37 37 25 <25 Desliming cyclone (% weight) 0.71 14.06 9.22 3.55 7.35 65.12 100.0

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Fig. 3. Perturbation plots illustrating the parametric eects for the 150 lm particle size separation using the Pansep screen.

thus increasing the d50c separation size to some extent. The increasing feed ow rate does not appear to have any appreciable eect on the separation size. The slight increase in the separation size due to the increase in screen velocity is an interesting nding. 3.1.2. Comparison with conventional technologies To quantify the size separation eciency provided by the existing technologies, samples were collected from the feed, overow and underow streams of the raw coal classifying cyclone and the VariSieve operating in the plant. The size-by-size analyses of these samples allowed generating the size partition curves for these existing technologies. The performance comparisons of the Pansep versus the 38 cm diameter raw coal classifying cyclone and the VariSieve are illustrated in Table 2 and
Table 2 Comparison of screening performance of the Pansep screen with classifying cyclone and VariSieve for size separation at 150 lm Performance Separation size (d95c ) (lm) Imperfection Selectivity index U/S recovery (%) O/S recovery (%) Overall eciency (%) Performance Separation size (d95c ) Imperfection Selectivity index U/S recovery (%) O/S recovery (%) Overall eciency (%) Raw coal cyclone 295 0.65 0.28 60 95 57 VariSieve 305 0.15 0.75 45 96 44 Pansep screen 295 0.17 0.69 98 100 98 Pansep screen 305 0.23 0.64 98 100 98

Fig. 4(a) and (b). The raw coal cyclone not only allows a signicant amount of ultrane materials to bypass the classication process but also hinders a sharp classication indicated by high imperfection value of 0.65. On the other hand, the VariSieve achieves sharp size classication as indicated by very low imperfection and very high selectivity index values. However, the overall sizing eciency of the VariSieve suers due to the signicant amount of ultrane bypass to its overow. In comparison, the Pansep screen provides an overall screening eciency of 98% while achieving the same d95c particle size separation for both samples due to near complete elimination of misplacements of both undersize and oversize materials to the screen underow and overow streams, respectively, as indicated in Table 2. The low undersize and oversize misplacements were a result of very little underow and overow by-pass and high selectivity of size separation provided by the Pansep screen.

3.2. Size separation at 45 lm 3.2.1. New design gMax cyclone An optimization test program was conducted to evaluate the classication eciency of the newly developed gMax cyclone. A 15 cm diameter gMax cyclone was used in this study for achieving ecient size separation at 45 lm and to compare its performance with the same sized cyclones of conventional design routinely used in the coal preparation plants. A three-factor completely randomized Box-Behnken design was conducted to optimize the process parameters to achieve a

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Fig. 4. Comparison of partition curves between (a) Pansep screen and 38 cm diameter raw coal cyclone as well as (b) Pansep screen and the VariSieve operating in a plant.

(a)

(b)
Fig. 5. The perturbation plots illustrating the parametric eects for the gMax cyclone.

size separation at near 45 lm with the best possible sharpness of separation. As, the perturbation plots in Fig. 5(a) and (b) indicate, the vortex nder diameter appears to have the maximum eect on both classication eciency and the separation size followed by the spigot diameter. Although the feed pressure appears to aect the separation size to some degree, it has a very minimal eect on the classication eciency. The optimized gMax cyclone completely eliminated the oversize misplacement to the overow; however, the overall classication eciency was only 68% due to nearly 30% misplacement of undersize particles to the cyclone underow.

3.2.2. Cyclowash An optimization test program was conducted using the Krebs apex water injection attachment with a gMax cyclone. Initially, a 25-2 fractional factorial design was pursued to conduct experiments in order to identify the key process parameters. Subsequently, a four-factor Box-Behnken experimental design was conducted to optimize the identied four key operating parameters to achieve a size separation at 45 lm with the best overall eciency. As shown in the perturbation plots in Fig. 6(a) and (b), the water injection rate and the truncated cone size as well as vortex nder diameters had the most eect both on the eciency and the separation size. The

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(a)

(b)

Fig. 6. Illustrations of the parametric eects for the Cyclowash attached to a gMax cyclone.

imperfection and selectivity index values signicantly improved with nearly no undersize bypass to the underow when the Cyclowash system was used with the gMax cyclone. However this required high volume of injection water, which signicantly increased the separation size and the oversize bypass to the cyclone overow. This phenomenon, which has also been observed by the past investigators, is believed to occur due to an increase in the net upward water velocity inside the cyclone with the injection of water at the apex. Thus, the improvement in the overall eciency was only marginal from 68% to 70%. 3.2.3. Pansep screen An experimental program was conducted using the Pansep screen with a new set of mesh panels to optimize

its ultrane screening eciency. A series of exploratory tests were conducted initially to investigate the range of hydraulic capacity, feed solid content and the need for adjusting the spray angle. It was found that increasing spray angle had a negative impact on the overall eciency of screening due to increased undersize bypass to the overow. Thus, the spray angle was maintained vertically downward during the entire optimization test program. A three-factor Box-Behnken design was conducted by varying feed solid content, feed volumetric rate and the linear velocity of the mesh panels to achieve the best eciency for size separation at 45 lm. As shown in the perturbation plots in Fig. 7, the feed solids content had the maximum eect on both eciency and d50c . The fact that the volumetric ow rate had a minimal eect may indicate higher hydraulic capacity of the

Fig. 7. The parametric eects of the Pansep screen for 45 lm size separation.

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Table 3 A comparative analysis of size separation performance obtained from the conventional cyclone versus three state of the art technologies Performance Separation size (d50c ) (lm) Imperfection Selectivity index U/S recovery (%) O/S recovery (%) Overall eciency (%) Conventional desliming cyclone 50 0.30 0.60 46 82 38 gMax 46 0.27 0.58 70 97 68 gMax Cyclowash 46 0.40 0.46 86 81 70 Pansep screen 48 0.18 0.70 99 100 99

Pansep screen than the maximum volumetric ow rate tested. The d50c separation size increases with both increasing feed solids content and increasing screen velocity. A near perfect eciency value of 99% was obtained from the Pansep screen for this ultrane size separation. 3.2.4. Comparison of performance A comparative analysis was conducted to determine the improvement achievable for the ultrane size separation at 45 lm particle size over the plant desliming cyclone performance. As may be inferred from Table 3, the signicant misplacements of undersize particles in the underow stream and oversize particles in the overow stream of 54% and 18%, respectively, obtained from the plant desliming cyclone were reduced to 30% and 3%, respectively, with the use of gMax cyclone. The use of apex water injection system with the gMax cyclone almost completely eliminated both undersize and oversize bypass but at a coarser separation size. In addition, the imperfection and selectivity index values also improved, as evident from the Fig. 8(a) and (b). However, as indicated in Table 3, at the same separation size, the overall eciency was only marginally improved from 68% to 70% with the use of the apex water injection system. As indicated both in Table 3 and Fig. 8, the maximum improvement of the size separation eciency was obtained from the Pansep screen in the form of a

near perfect overall eciency of 99% while maintaining nearly the same d50c . 3.3. Throughput capacity The superior size separation performances achieved from the Pansep screen both at 150 lm and 45 lm size are important ndings of this investigation. Along with selective size separation, throughput capacity would play a major role in determining the commercialization potential of this new screening technology. The performance of the Pansep screen is dependent on the available screening surface area and, as any other screen, the total screening area determines its oversize throughput. Fig. 9(a) and (b) illustrate the change in screening eciency with an increasing oversize throughput for 150 lm and 45 lm size separation, respectively, from a Pansep screen having a screening surface of 0.5 m2 . As shown in Fig. 9(a), for the 150 lm size separation, the sharpness of separation indicated by the imperfection value remains nearly constant throughout the entire range of throughput rates tested. Due to the increase in the undersize bypass to the overow, the overall eciency of the screening process decreases slightly at the higher throughput rates. On the other hand, as shown in Fig. 9(b), for the 45 lm size separation, the trend of decreasing eciency as a function of increasing throughput is clearly evident. Unlike the 150 lm size

Fig. 8. A comparative analysis of the (a) uncorrected and (b) corrected size partition data obtained from the conventional desliming cyclone used in a plant environment and the newly developed size separation technologies.

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Fig. 9. An illustration of the change in the screening performance parameters as a function of oversize throughput rate for (a) 150 lm and (b) 45 lm size separations.

separation, the imperfection value exhibits an increasing trend at higher throughput rates. Simultaneous increase in both undersize bypass and imperfection values aects the overall eciency more in case of the 45 lm size separation.

4. Conclusions The conclusions of this size separation study are summarized as follows: 1. The analyses of slurry samples collected around a 38 cm diameter cyclone and a 1.8 m wide VariSieve operating in an Illinois coal preparation plant reveal the

poor classication and screening performances obtained from the conventional technologies for d50c size separation of 150 lm. The overall eciency of size separation is signicantly improved to the near perfect level of 98% by the use of a pilot-scale Pansep screen in comparison to 57% and 44% obtained respectively from a raw coal cyclone and a VariSieve screening the spiral concentrate in a plant. 2. A bank of 15 cm diameter secondary desliming cyclones operating in the same plant provides an overall eciency of 38%, because of misplacement of 18% oversize particles in the overow and 54% undersize particles in the underow streams. This performance is improved to 3% of oversize misplacement and 30% of undersize misplacement with the use of a new

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design 15 cm diameter gMax cyclone, while achieving the same d50c separation size of 45 lm. By integrating the apex water injection system (Cyclowash) to the gMax cyclone, the undersize misplacement is reduced from 30% to 14%. However, due to a signicant increase in the d50c size, the overall eciency calculated using a separation size of 45 lm showed marginal improvement from 68% to 70%. The Pansep screening technology produced the best size separation performance providing an overall eciency of 99%. 3. A pilot scale Pansep screen having a screening surface area of 0.5 m2 provided high overall eciency value of above 85% over the entire range of mass throughput values tested for the 150 lm size separation. The maximum product and feed mass throughput rates tested were 7.0 and 9.2 ton/h m2 , respectively, while achieving a separation size of 150 lm. The sharpness of separation indicated by the imperfection remained nearly constant over the entire range of throughput rates, while the undersize bypass to the screen overow marginally increased. This caused a slight decrease of the overall eciency for the higher throughput rates. Higher feed throughput rate above 9.2 ton/h m2 needs to be investigated to determine a limiting rate above which the sharpness of separation starts deteriorating for 150 lm size separation. 4. Unlike the 150 lm size separation, the sharpness of separation obtained from the Pansep screen deteriorated signicantly at higher feed throughput rate in the range of 68 ton/h m2 for 45 lm size separation. In addition, the undersize bypass also increased up to nearly 6% at the high throughput range. These two phenomena together caused the deterioration of the overall eciency to below 80% above a feed and products throughput of 7.8 and 7.4 ton/h m2 , respectively.

References
Brown, J.V., Buisman, R., Imhof R.M., 2000. Cost savings Potentials of Pansep Screening Technology, Proceedings, Major Trends in Development of Sulde Ores Up-Grading in the 21st century, Norilisk, April 2428. Buisman, R., Reyneke, K., 2000. Fine Coal Screening Using the New Pansep Screen. Proceedings of the 17th International Coal Preparation Conference, Lexington, Kentucky, pp. 7185. Dahlstorm, D.A., 1954. Fundamentals and applications of the liquid cyclone. Chemical Engineering Progress Symposium Series, vol. 15. American Institute of Chemical Engineers, pp. 41. Firth, B., Hu, S., O Brien, M., Clarkson, C.J., Edward, D., 1998. Some aspects of hydraulic size classication. In: Partridge, A.C., Partridge, I.R. (Eds.), Proceedings of the XIII International Coal Preparation Congress, vol. 1. Australian Coal Prep. Society, pp. 236244. Firth, B., Edward, D., Clarkson, C.J., O Brien, M., 1995. The impact of ne classication on coal preparation performance. Proceedings of the Seventh Australian Coal Preparation Conference, paper E2, Australian Coal Preparation Society, pp. 250276. Honaker, R.Q., Paul, B.C., Wang, D., Ho, K., 1995. Enhanced gravity separation: an alternative to otation. In: Kawatra, S.K. (Ed.), High Eciency Coal Preparation: An International Symposium. Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Inc., Littleton, Colorado, pp. 6978. Honaker, R.Q., Ozsever, A.V., Singh, N., Parekh, B.K., 2001a. Apex water injection for improved hydrocyclone classication eciency. Minerals Engineering 14 (11), 14451457. Honaker, R.Q., Ozsever, A.V., Singh, N., Parekh, B.K., 2001b. Improved classication eciency using the Krebs Cyclowash System, Proceedings of the 18th International Coal Preparation Conference, Lexington, Kentucky, pp. 101111. Kelsall, D.F., Holmes, J.A., 1960. Improvement in classication eciency in hydraulic cyclones by water injection. Proceedings of the Fifth Mineral Processing Congress, Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Paper 9, pp. 159170. Krebs Engineer website, 2001. Available from <www.krebs.com>. Luttrell, G.H., Honaker, R.Q., Philips, D., 1995. Enhanced gravity separators: new alternatives for ne coal cleaning. Proceedings of the 12th International Coal Preparation Conference, Lexington, Kentucky, pp. 282292. McAlister, S., 1998. Development of the falcon concentrators, preprint 98-172. Annual Meeting, March 911, Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Inc., Littleton, Colorado. Mohanty, M.K., Honaker, R.Q., 1999. Evaluation of the Altair centrifugal jig for ne coal separation. Coal Preparation 20, 85 106. Olson, T., 2001. Krebs Engineers, Business communication. Patil, D.D., Rao, T.C., 1999. Classication evaluation of water injection hydrocyclone. Minerals Engineering 12 (12), 14271432. Riley, D.M., Firth, B.A., Lockhart, N.C., 1995. Enhanced gravity separation. In: Kawatra, S.K. (Ed.), High Eciency Coal Preparation: An International Symposium. Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Inc., Littleton, Colorado, pp. 7988. Venkatraman, P., Luttrell, G.H., Yoon, R.-H., Knoll, F.S., Kow, W.S., Mankosa, M.J., 1995. Fine coal cleaning using multigravity separator. In: Kawatra, S.K. (Ed.), High Eciency Coal Preparation: An International Symposium. Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Inc., Littleton, Colorado, pp. 109117.

Acknowledgements The authors sincerely acknowledge the funds provided by the Oce of Coal Development of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Aairs under the recommendation of the Illinois Clean Coal Institute for this investigation. In addition, the authors greatly appreciate the technical guidance and support provided during the course of this investigation by Mr. Tim Olson, Mr. Bob Moorhead and Mr. Jack Hopwood of Krebs Engineers and Dr. Rein Buisman, Mr. Kobus Ryneke and Mr. Uriah Shelby of the Pansep group.