Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 13311340

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Resources, Conservation and Recycling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec

Recycling utilization patterns of coal mining waste in China

Liu Haibin a , Liu Zhenling b,
a
b

School of Management, China University of Mining & Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China
School of Management, Henan University of Technology, Lian Hua Street, Zhengzhou, Henan 450001, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 1 August 2009
Received in revised form 1 May 2010
Accepted 15 May 2010
Keywords:
Coal mining waste
Comprehensive utilization
Recycling economy
Industrial chains

a b s t r a c t
With the fast development of Chinese economy in recent years, China has become the largest coal production and consumption country in the world. Correspondingly, it has produced large quantities of mining
waste including coal gangue, coal sludge, y-ash, coal mine drainage and coal-bed methane (CBM) that
are hazardous to the soil, air, and water. Based on the theory and practice of sustainable development
and recycling economy, the paper will discuss and analyze the mining waste management in Jincheng
Anthracite Mining Group, Shanxi Province, where they have found the paths to realize the mining waste
reusing and recycling in colliery. They had established many green industrial chains in the mining waste
treatment: the gangue piles turned into man-made eco-park, gangue used for power generation, y-ash
used in the building material, the coal mining water reused and recycled in closed pipelines, the CBM
extracted for home-burning and electricity generation, etc. The coal mining waste has been converted
into wealth and played more and more important roles in many elds. The practice indicated that these
patterns can be applied in other coal mines.
2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Coal mining waste has become the primary pollution sources
in China. Due to the fast economy development in recent years
and the consequently soaring demand for coal to generate electricity, China has become the largest coal producer and consumer
in the world. In 2008, China had produced 2716 Mtons raw coal,
accounting for approximately 40% of the total production in the
world and overtaken the United States as the worlds biggest producer of carbon dioxide. As coal mining waste is part of the raw
coal, the more coal production, the more waste to be dealth with.
The coal mining waste are coal gangue, coal slime, y-ash, coal mine
drainage, coal-bed methane (CBM). If the waste is disposed improperly, it would threaten the environment and bring about serious
pollutions, nally become the constraints to economy development (Skarzynska, 1995; Bell et al., 2000; McKinnon, 2002; Bian
and Zhang, 2006).
In China, about 95% of total coal production is from underground
coal mines. The average production of coal mining wastes is about
15% of coal production, which varies from 10 to 15% with the change
of geological and mining conditions. Therefore, it is estimated that
the annual production of coal mining wastes is about 315 million
tons for underground coal mining since 2007, which accounts for
a quarter of the total industrial solid wastes. There are about 4.5

Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 371 6775 6950; fax: +86 371 6775 6390.
E-mail address: liuzhenling1858@126.com (L. Zhenling).
0921-3449/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2010.05.005

billion tons of coal mining wastes stockpiled at 1700 waste dumps

which occupied 15,000 ha lands (Bian et al., 2009). If the gangue is
exposed to the air and piled on land, it will produce serious pollutions into the environment. The physical, chemical, or biological
changes help it produce spontaneous combustion and pollution
leaching (Ma et al., 2008). The hazardous is as follows.
Natural calamity, such as landslide and debris ow due to improperly piled gangue.
Poison releasing, natural weathering and rainwater drenching
causing the poisonous into the soil and underground water.
Spontaneous combustion, the poisonous gas emitting into the
atmosphere.
Acid rain formation near the gangue mountain.
Noxious substance polluting the groundwater.
Coal sludge and y-ash are another solid industrial waste in
coal mine. Coal sludge is produced in the coal washing process,
which contains carcinogenic chemicals and toxic heavy metals that
are present in coal, such as arsenic, mercury, chromium, cadmium,
boron, selenium, and nickel. Although the coal sludge is one of the
coal mining wastes, it can be burnt in special condition as it has low
caloric value. Coal y-ash is the leavings after the coal burning in
the power plant. The annual production of y-ash is more than 150
million tons. As it is very small and light, it is very easy to y with
wind. If not scientically treated, it is easy to pollute the environment of the mining area by polluting the water, atmosphere, soil
and occupying land. The traditional treatment may cause:

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L. Haibin, L. Zhenling / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 13311340

Table 1
Chemical composition of the y-ash and coal gangue.

Flay ash
Coal gangue

SiO2

Al2 O3

Fe2 O3

CaO

MgO

Other

Ignition loss

50.6
53.16

27.2
15.53

7.0
7.43

2.8
4.14

1.2
0.97

2.1

8.2
16.3

Note: The coal gangue data comes from Jincheng, Shanxi Province. The y-ash data is the national average. See The High-tech Research Process of Industrial Solid Waste in
China in International Workshop on Sustainable Development and Concrete Technology.

potential toxicant that pollutes the groundwater and soil,

occasionally piles up occupying land and contaminating soil,
contaminating atmospheres in large area contributing to its
long-distance transportation that may cause serious regional
environmental pollution,
the air-suspended particles, which is much harmful to peoples
health.
In coal mining process, a large amount of water is required for
de-dusting. However, much coal reservation are buried in the semiarid or arid regions where water resource is in highly shortage
in many coal mines in China, for example, the Shanxi Province,
the West of Neimenggu province. The water mixed with the coal
dust, along with the gushing underground water, forms the mine
drainage. As estimated by the statistical bureau, the coal mining
wastewater sums to about 2.2 billion, averaging 4 m3 water per
ton coal production (China and GAoEP, 2002). If untreated, the
water combining with heavy metal ions such as iron and mercury
ions would denitely pollute the groundwater. Nevertheless, it will
waste the cherish water resource. Thus, it is of importance for the
coal mine to recycle the mine drainage.
The coal-bed methane (CBM) or gas is ammable gas which is
accompanied with the coal resource. As it is ammable, it is a kind
of valuable and clean energy. However, it is also a killer to the miners and threats to safety production due to its possible explosions
underground. In the coal mining production, the general principle
for the coal and gas outburst mines is to extract gas before mining.
As a kind of greenhouse gas, the effectively utilizing of CBM become
important in the recycling economy.
It is generally argued that coal mining can have serious adverse
environmental and related impacts, including interference with
groundwater quantity and quality, land subsidence, impacts on
river ows and consequential impact on other land-uses, issues
associated with mining wastes disposal, creation of geological hazards, visible and esthetic issues, damage to infrastructure and
potential ecological havoc (Skarzynska, 1995; Bell et al., 2000;
McKinnon, 2002; Bian and Zhang, 2006). Of these wide range of
issues, the disposal of mining wastes itself has received relatively
less attention, especially considering the nature of the disposal
methods, the opportunities for utilization of the mining wastes and
the potential size of their impact on environment if not managed
correctly (Szczepanska, 1999). However, the proper treat method
for the coal mining waste is welcome for the sustainable development, which can bring about great economic benets. Therefore,
the coal mine wastes have already been one of the major threats to
environment and how to scientically treat has become an urgent
problem for coal mines.
In recent years, recycling economy has become the focus of
the academic study, and with more sophisticated techniques of
waste control and use applied into the waste treatment, constructing green industry chains based on recycling economy maybe a
solution to the problem.
The content of the research is arranged as follows. Section 2 is to
review the traditional treatments on the mine wastes. Next section
is to introduce the general theory of the recycling economy and
the meaning for the coal mine to develop recycling economy. Then,
taking the Shanxi Jincheng coal group as example, the recycling

green industrial chains of coal mining wastes are studied. Finally,

the conclusion is summarized.
2. Traditional treatments
2.1. Coal gangue
Fly-ash and coal gangue are the two main industrial solid waste
in China. The chemical compositions (shown in Table 1) were SiO2 ,
Al2 O3 , Fe2 O3 and some impurities. As the coal gangue is main solid
waste for coal mining, one of the most common approaches to
waste rock is to stack construction that encapsulate the most pyrite
rich rocks in the core of a waste rock stack (Lottermoser, 2003;
Williams et al., 2003). For some high carbon coal gangue, it is generally mixed with other coal for mine-mouth power generation,
and it has indicated its techno-economic feasibility of mine-mouth
power plants (Chugh and Patwardhan, 2004). Mostly, by different processing methods, the reuse of the coal gangue is used as
input material for traditional constructing material, e.g. cement,
and new building material, such as, calcined products with high coal
gangue, non-load-bearing hollow brick, and load bearing hollow
brick, and lightweight aggregate that are replace for clay (Xiaoyan
and Changsheng, 2007). In addition, coal gangue has been accepted
in many places as alternative aggregates in embankment, road,
pavement, foundation and building construction, pyrites extraction, zeolites production, etc. (Xiaowang, 2009; Sun and Li, 2008).
2.2. Fly-ash
Coal is mainly combusted for electricity generation in power
plants, and coal ash is primarily solid waste after burned. Traditionally, the majority of coal ash has been dumped in cone heaps
and has the potential to pollute air, soil and water environments
and landscapes through dust generation (Xiaojun, 2007; Bian et al.,
2009). Although some of them are recycled utilized which is in civil
construction materials, there is a limit to the demand for coal ash
by construction industries. In Finland, Kikuchi (1999) summarized
three ways to treat the coal ash: (1) alkali treatment can transform
coal ash to zeolite; (2) potassium silicate fertilizer is produced from
coal ash and has a higher receptivity in the soil than that of conventional fertilizers; (3) emission of sulfur dioxide is controlled by
ue gas desulfurization using coal ash (Kikuchi, 1999).
2.3. Coal mine water and coal-bed methane
There are many problems existed in the treatment of coal mines
in China, such as, part wastewater treated adequately, insufcient treatment capacity, improper colliery design, poor quality of
treated water, etc. (Ke and Liyun, 2010). Traditionally, the reuse
of coal mine water can be divided into four kinds: industrial production (re extinguishment, dust proof, explosion protection and
so on with low quality water), environmental purication (garden
forestation, spring, road sprinkle), life living (deeply treated water
for drinking, boothing), agricultural water for irrigation (Kurbiel
et al., 1996; Dharmappa et al., 2000; Viadero and Tierney, 2003;
Lambert et al., 2004).

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Due to the uneconomic extraction of the coal-bed methane, it

is previously extracted by ventilation gas into air directly without treatment and development which resulted in wasting the
resources, greenhouse effect, pneumoconiosis (Tang et al., 2007;
Islam and Hayashi, 2008; Hemza et al., 2009; Myers, 2009). Thus, it
is necessary to develop the resources and prevent and reduce the
mine disasters (Xueyu, 2010).

3. Recycling economy theory and practice in coal mines

3.1. Concept of recycling economy
The so-called recycle economy, in essence, is a kind of ecological economy, which requires the ecologic law, instead the
traditional mechanism, to guide the economic activities of the
human society. Compared to the traditional economy, the great
difference of recycling economy lies in the production process, in which the traditional economic chain follows natural
resource product pollutant, one-way ow, linear economy,
characterized by high intension exploitation, low level utilization,
high emission; while in the recycling economy, the production
chain is resource products renewable resources, a feedback
ow, characterized by low intension exploitation, high level utilization, low emission. In the traditional economy, people exploit
the natural resources, then manufacture industrial products, and
discharge the waste or pollutant into the water, atmosphere and
soil. These activity converting resources into waste ceaselessly is
primarily the condition so as to achieve a quantitatively economy
growth. On the contrast, in recycling economy, the economic activity is environmental friendly and harmonious with the nature. All
of the materials and energy should be utilized reasonably and sustainable in order to lower the impact of the economic activities on
the natural environment to the smallest extent.
How to realize the recycling economy? The 3R principle and
the waste avoidance are two guiding principles applied in practicing the strategic idea of recycle economy. 3Rs is an acronym which
stands for Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Reduce requires fewer input
of raw material and energy in the production process, and this is the
most effective of the three Rs and the place to begin. Reusing keeps
new resources from being used for a while longer, and old resources
from entering the waste stream. Furthermore, reusing requires that
the manufactures and packages could be used repeatedly. Moreover, manufacturers are required to extend product life period as
long as possible, calling for a boycott of disposable supplies. Recycling is the R that has caught on the best, and it requires that the
products could be recycled rather than disposed into trash. Taking the idea of recycle economy into consideration, the producers
should be responsible for resolving the waste products (Fig. 1).

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3.2. Why do the coal mines need the recycling economy?

The major underlying forces that are helping to carry out recycle
economy in coal mining areas are:
(1) It is favorable for coal mines to realize an overall planning
and coordinative development. The recycling economy requires
that all industries associated with the coal mining have an overall planning, the industrial and product structure are regulated,
the coal exploitation scale and order, the equipment and environment protection have a predestined schemes. This can lead
to a coordinate development and maximizing benets.
(2) The limitation and exhaustibility of coal resource determines
the comprehensive exploitation and utilization of coal. The
middling coal in coal washing, coal sludge and gangue are all
low caloric value, but they can be mixed combusted in electricity generation; the coal drainage could be recycled and used
for coal washing, daily life and agricultural irrigation; the IGCC
(integrated gasication comprehensive circulation) technology
brings coal combustion gases to drive the generators and steam
turbine generator; the y-ash of power plant, slag, etc. used for
producing construction material, land reclaiming, backll and
so on.
(3) Releasing the pressure on the railway transportation and saving the transportation capacity. If the coal mine practice the
recycling economy, more coal are converted into electricity
transmitted to remote region rather than the raw coal transported. The conversion not only increases the added value of the
products, but also reduces the transporting outward amount.
The most important is to relieve the contradiction between
mining and transportation, which is realistic and practical to
be resolved.
(4) It is favorable for the sustainable development of coal mining
area. The coal mining intensity must be consistent with the coal
resource conservation. Under the total output controlling, the
recycling economy helps the mines to optimize the industrial
and products structure, to make appropriate scale of operation, to improve the utilization efciency of resources, to make
resources advantages turn into the economic advantage. These
benets not only improve the economic benets of the coal
mining enterprise, but also promote the development of other
industries.
In short, the world has entered an era of diversied energy
and chemical materials. Thus, different countries or regions choose
practical, feasible coal processing and utilizing technology based
on their own needs of energy resources and their economic
development level. Development of the recycling has become
important solution to the coal mining wastes treatment and energy
savings.
3.3. General patterns of recycling economy in coal mine

Fig. 1. The ow of product in recycling economy.

In recent years, the recycle economy theory has been applied

into many coal mines in China, where different mines designs different mode in accordance to diverse resource and environmental
characteristics. These coal development modes include coalelectricity development, coal-electricity-coke comprehensively
development, coal-electricity-high-energy consumption industries, coal-gasication (uidization) synthetically development,
coal-electricity-roads (railway building)-ports, etc. After analyzing the practical activities of recycling economy in different coal
mine areas and the relationship between the coal exploitation
with its related industries development, we can nd that the recycling economy in coal mines should regard the coal mining and
coal washing industries as the core of coal mining recycling. The

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Fig. 2. The general mode of recycling economy in coal mines.

development mode should be constructed by carefully selecting

the electricity generation, coal transportation, coal coking, and
coal-chemical industry, high-energy consumption industry, environmental protection industry. The general mode that the coal
mining area develops recycle economy can be expressed as Fig. 2.
Fig. 2 shows that the coal mining industrial chain can be
extended to downstream industries. Developing recycle economy
should pay attention to the resource characteristic of the mining
areas, the geographic settings, the regional ecological environment,
national macroeconomic environment and relevant policies and
so on. Only by optimizing the combinations, a proper developing
mode can be selected in the special colliery.

4. Green industrial chains: patterns in Jincheng colliery

4.1. Brief description
4.1.1. Enterprises overview
Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Mining Group (JCAMG) is an important coal mining enterprises in China. It is one of the 520
distinguished enterprises in China and one of the 10 leading companies in Shanxi Province, which is the maximum coal production
province in China. It is as well one of the important enterprises
as an important production base of high-quality anthracite and
has registered capital 4052 million Yuan RMB, 25 subsidiaries,
18 branch companies and 18 shareholding companies, more than
50,000 employees. The JCAMG ranks the seventh of top 100 coal
mining enterprises in China released by China Coal Industry Association. Moreover, it is an important part of Jindong coal base, one of
the 13 national planning large-scale coal bases. By the end of 2005,
the production capacity approved has reached to 30.60 Mtons/a,
the raw coal production to 30.60 Mtons in 2005.
The JCAMG has formed a multi-industries production conguration, since the group restructured in 2000. Its production can
be divided into four sections, coal mining, railway and port building, coal equipment manufacturing and other non-coal industries.

Based on the present status and prospective market environment,

it has chosen three industries, coal and the CBM, coal and electricity
generation, coal-chemical industry as primary area in the Twelfth
Five-Year Plan (20112015).

4.1.2. Natural resource

(1) Coal resource
The JCAMG has a reservation of coal resources at about
54,000 Mtons by the end of 2004. Of which: the geological
maintenance reserves of nearly 25,000 Mtons; and predicted
resources for nearly 40,000 Mtons, among which, under
1200 m has an amount of 19,961 Mtons, while 1200 m to
1700 m has about 9350 Mtons.
Among the geological maintenance reservation of
25,000 Mtons, operating wells and constructing wells takes up
reserves to 15,000 Mtons, untapped reserves in the exploration
(precisely surveyed reserves) has amount to 58.66 Mtons,
prospecting for further investigation of reserves around
618.70 Mtons, the census reserves is 9908.77 Mtons.
In the predicted resource, 19961.2 Mtons, of shallower than
1200 m, the operating wells and wells under construction of
the JCAMG use 2600 Mtons. The total coal resource of operating
wells and wells under construction takes up 9600 Mtons.
(2) Water resource
Shanxi is located in the North China Plateau, a varied topography and dry climate region. It is extremely shortage in water
for this province. The total amount of the annual average water
resources is 12.38 billion m3 , the provinces water resources
per capita is only 381 m3 , is 1/7 of the national average level,
far below the internationally recognized extremely scarce in
water bottom line, 500 m3 per capita. In Shanxi Province, there
has been continually ultra-intensively, large-scale exploitation
of coal resources, which had lead to the severe destruction on
the water resource. The water resource in the JCAMG ranks
in the middle and upper level among all coal mines in Shanxi
Province, but still belongs to dry area. Sooner or later, the water

L. Haibin, L. Zhenling / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 13311340

1335

resource would become the constraints of the development of

the JCAMG.
(3) The CBM resource
The west colliery of the JCAMG riches in the CBM (gas)
resources, in addition, the coal-bed methane is not only high
permeability, but also strong in high gas saturation, gas occurrence of high stress, fracture seam, good drawn admissibility.
The west colliery of the JCAMG owns totally 13 mining wells
that are operating, under construction or in planning. The
total mining area has 3728.6 km, Nos. 2 and 3 coal seams of
coal resources reserves 25,000 Mtons, No. 3 coal seams CBM
reserves of about 600,000 Mm3 , the average ton of the CBM
resources is 23.65 m3 . These show a good prospect for future
development.
Fig. 3. The industrial chains of recycling economy.

4.2. Green industrial chains

4.2.1. Recycling economy patterns
In order to reach its great goals, that is to build the colliery of
the JCAMG to be the largest anthracite coal base in China, the base
of the CBM exploitation and utilization, coal-electricity and coalchemical industries base, the JCAMG stresses on the formation of
its core competitiveness and the harmonious development with
the environment by taking the recycling economy as its strategy.
According to the idea of recycling economy, the industrial chains
include two parts.
The rst one is core chains of recycling economy. It includes
the exploitation of coal&CBM, coal washing, coal-electricity, coalchemical industry, mining water, harbors, road and other related
industries, in order to continuously improve the Groups competitiveness.
The second one is extended chains. It includes the mining
equipment manufacturing, logistics, brick and cement producing,
construction and other related industries, constantly enhances the
harmonious development of the environment.
In the two industrial chains, the waste, gangue, coal water,
sludge, y-ash and the CBM, are not thrown away or discarded
discretionarily, but integrated into the whole chains, recycled and

reused, and become the input for other industry. Now, the JCAMG
has built a benign interactive development mode combining recycling economy industry chains and ecological environment. The
pattern of recycling economy is as shown in Fig. 3.
4.2.2. Coal gangue
The comprehensive development and utilization of coal gangue
not only can control the sources of pollution, but also can turn the
waste into valuable treasure, and get enormous economic benets. In the colliery of the JCAMG, the comprehensive utilization of
coal gangue includes electricity generation, coverage, landll, and
forestation, as shown in Fig. 4.
Power generating. Coal gangue used to power generating is an
important way to dispose the solid waste, which mainly makes use
of caloric value at 33506280 kJ/kg of waste rock, using sophisticated technology of the 75 tons/h Circulating Fluidized Bed Boiler,
mixed fuel coal gangue with slime for power generation. This technology has solved the difcult problem of different low calorie fuels
mixed together. According to statistics, no less than 560,000 tons

Fig. 4. The comprehensive utilization of the coal gangue.

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L. Haibin, L. Zhenling / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 13311340

of gangue is burnt in gangue power plants every year, equivalent

to 80,000 tons of standard coal.
As for the gangue unsuitable for power generating, the utilization of coal gangue includes coverage, forestation and landll. How
to cover the gangue? Usually, the gangue unt for burning is piled
up near the mouth of the coal well and forms a coal gangue mountain as the gangue dumps higher and higher. Coverage it to put the
loess or mud onto the waste rock mountain so as to reduce the
ventilation (the oxygen), prevent from the spontaneous combustion and its expansion, prepare for eld building up and afforesting.
After the coverage with the soil on the gangue mountain, the next
step is to create the condition for the afforesting by consolidating the land, such as tamping surrounded the mountain, step-style
preparation. Then, by improving the environment for plant growth
or being reclaimed in accordance with site conditions, the plants,
such as the locust tree, hippophae, Rosa, etc. can be planted that
can keep the soil from erosion and gangue from spontaneous burning. After afforesting, the atmosphere pollution, dust, poisonous
materials, can be avoided effectively, the atmosphere and water
quality can be improved dramatically. Landll can be divided into
two methods as the conventional landll and sanitary landll. Conventional landll method is to ll gangue directly in the pond, lake,
ditch or low-lying areas collapsed on the site and waste not to make
any deal. This discharge is very simple and cheap, but easy to pollute the environment caused by the secondary pollution. Sanitary
landll is the worlds most commonly used in solid waste treatment technology. It is on the site scientically selected, to use the
necessary protective means and reasonable landll structure, try
to mitigate and eliminate the solid waste pollution on the environment. Sanitary landll can effectively control the leaching of
water diffusion; reduce the pollution on groundwater, plant trees
and grass, restore the ecological environment at the top layer of
impermeable or reclamation.
In the colliery of the JCAMG, the comprehensive utilization of the
coal gangue has made great positive impacts. Suppose that every
1000 m3 of coal gangue takes up 40 m2 , the total gangue discarded
by the coal mines, more than 500,000 m3 annually in the JCAMG,
would occupy more than 2 ha new land, which would be a heavy
burden for the mines. Through the analysis on the chemical, sulfur,
harmful trace, radioactivity and leaching, etc., they are conrmed
that these indexes do not exceed the national standard and the
gangue can be used to reclamation and ll land. Coal mining subsidence area gradually expanded, with an average depth of 4.3 m
collapsed, the biggest sinking depth of 8 m. Therefore, they combine the solid waste emission with the subsidence area reclamation
governance in the practice. On the one hand, they has bought the
relevant machinery and equipments, take out the topsoil in the subsiding area, dump the gangue into the subsiding area, relling the
soil or loess with the gangue, compacting layer by layer, covering
the cultivating soil on the top layer. This approach can enhance the
density of lling waste, reduce wastewater permeability and water
content in the gangues, so as to prevent the leaching of heavy metals and other harmful substances leaking into the groundwater. At
present, land subsidence has control over 2000 acres, 6000 acres are
being implemented under the governance and planning treatment.
On the other hand, the relling areas are tidied through lling by
layers, roller compacted, and their bearing capacity of the weight
of building is improved. As a result, the base is so solid that it can
be industrial construction land for developing non-coal industries.
The chemical plants, construction and installation company, yash brick factory, Liqueed Petroleum Gas (LPG) station, training
base and so on are built one by one in these relling area. A large
number of surplus staff is re-employed in these companies. In addition, they also implement an eco-environmental reengineering that
is to reclamation the land using coal gangue, village reconstruction in the subsidence area. The results indicate that by the end

of 2007, more than 3 million tons coal gangue disappeared, about

70 ha land emerged. The total investment was 34.8 million Yuan
RMB, the planned 490 families had moved back to the area, each
household with a construction area of 160200 m2 , courtyard area
of 70100 m2 . This project was identied as one of the top 10 Technological Demonstration Projects of Sustainable Development in
Shanxi Province.
As for the coal gangue mountain left over in initial stage of the
well construction, they also invested great number money in dealing with from the governance, greening and making landscape. In
the early gangue mountain, the ring road was built, pavilion with
ancient style founded, more than 20 species of bush planted, the
corner of the subside area was transformed into a man-made lake,
covering 14,670 m2 , a pavilion and bridge built inside the lake, sh
in water, willow on the lakeside, a garden of 8000 m2 and a leisure
tness plaza entertainment of 16,000 m2 . The colliery district has
become a beautiful landscape matched together with mountain
and trees, owers, the environment elegant beautiful scenery, so
that the waste rock pile into an ecological park, creating signicant
environmental protection, land reclamation, economic and social
benets. Just like conservative estimates of protability indicate
potential to provide a return on investment in the range of 2025%.
A 40% return on investment is projected if the Coal Industrial Park
includes production and captive use of process steam (Chugh and
Patwardhan, 2004).
4.2.3. Coal sludge and y-ash
Coal sludge or slime is the tailed coal after mechanical dewatering of coal in the coal washing process. It can ow with the water,
but air-dried quickly to ash and y with the wind. As discussed
above, if the coal sludge cant treat properly, it would pollution
and waste the resources, thus it has been a hot potato in the
waste comprehensive utilization. In the Jincheng colliery, it has
found the path to reduce the waste and turn it into resource. Taking the Chengzhuang coal mine as example, it has produced about
180,000 tons sludge every year. The mine has built a slime burning power plant that can convert the slime into electrical energy,
burning the coal sludge 180,000 tons per year, and generating
180 million kWh, earning prot 40 million Yuan RMB annually.
The project not only effectively supplement power supply for coal
mine, creating signicant economic benets, but also make full
use of waste heat of power generation to supply the mine ofce
and staff conducted a focus on residential heating, heating up an
area of 1,000,000 m2 , equivalent to 10 large-scale heating boiler
room, eliminating the heating boiler soot pollution, annual savings of more than 10 million tons of coal-red heating boilers and
100 million operation and maintenance costs. This waste treatment
solves the problem of the slime storage, sale, transport, erosion, pollution and other problems and set up a good example for the slime
utilization.
The coal after burnt in the boiler will become the soot emitted
into the air and y-ash left in the hearth. Before the recycling economy implemented, the ash was transported outside subside area
by cars. Because the y-ash is small, light, easy to disperse with the
wind, it can cause a certain amount of pollution. In order to treat the
waste scientically, the Jincheng colliery launched a project of yash replacing the loess defending and extinguishing re grouting
underground. The y-ash is easy to dehydrate and pile up, which
overcome the defects of loess in mud ow impedance, difculty in
piled up. After the y-ash slurry infused into the loose body, it can
soon dehydrate and pile up, blocking the hole, which bring about
great benets, saving the soil resource, get high-quality reproofing materials. In addition, the y-ash is added into the cement and
other solidifying material using in the lane reconstruction in the
well, which is solid, stable, labor-and-time-saving, cost-saving and
improve the ability in reproong.

L. Haibin, L. Zhenling / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 13311340

There is another way to utilize the y-ash, which is to add into

material producing the colored brick. In order to reduce the pollution of the y-ash to the maximum extent, the Jincheng colliery
launched a project of blocks molding colored brick. The project
produced more than 500,000 colored bricks annually, achieved revenues of 1.5 million Yuan, 300,000 Yuan of prots, and created more
than 20 jobs. The colored bricks can be used in the road surface
beautifying, landscaping, building architecture, which ended the
history of brick making only with the clay. Supposing that every colored brick replacing 1.5 kg clay, the project could save the clay more
than 10,000 tons which not only beautify the environment, save the
fund, but also improve economic efciency, save the valuable land
resources.

Fig. 5. The comprehensive utilization of the y-ash.

Fig. 6. The reuse and recycle of the coal mining water.

1337

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L. Haibin, L. Zhenling / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 13311340

Fig. 7. The comprehensive extraction and utilization CBM.

Besides the above ways of y-ash utilization, there are other

ways to reuse the waste: lling it in the mined-out area, grouting
separated strata zone in overburden in wells, surface subsidence
mitigation, producing aluminum with the high-aluminum y-ash
(Fig. 5).
4.2.4. Coal mining water
Due to the shortage of water in Jincheng colliery, it is of importance to reuse the coal mining drainage in wells, life sewage in
living area, sewage in hospitals and coal washing water. The coal
mining drainage can be reused in life and industrial production
after treated and the life sewage be used to garden irrigation, supplementary water in the coal washing plant and the power plants.
Taking the Chengzhuang coal mine as example, they invested
4.38 million Yuan RMB to construct a coal mining drainage treatment stations in 2003. Then, invested 7 million Yuan to reconstruct
the stations and enhance the coal mining water treatment capacities in 2006. Now, the treated water is used in recycle cooling water
in the self-supporting power plant, supplementary water for the
coal washing plant, re protection water, and underground well
production water, which recycle the wastewater and reuse the relatively valuable water resource, saving the water resource more
than 2 million cubic meters every year. To further conserve water
and reduce the consumption of underground fresh water, they also
invested 5.3 million Yuan in 2007 to improve the water treatment
capacity that can reuse all the waste mining water underground
and implementation of zero emission. At the same time, they reconstruct the water resource establishment including green spraying,
irrigation water and man-made lakes, such as landscape ornamental water attractions, reusing all the remaining mining water. A
great amount of money initially spending on the water resource
exploitation and well fresh water lifting is saved, directly economic
benet over 1.4 million Yuan RMB.
In order to improve the life sewage treatment capacity in colliery, the Chengzhuang mine invested 8.5 million Yuan to build
a sewage treatment plants handling 10,000 m3 wastewater per
day. The life sewage is treated through coagulation-sedimentation
processes, the technology selection reasonable; after depth treatment, the water quality meets the National Integrated Wastewater
Discharge Standard level standard, reducing pollutants (COD)
emissions near 400 tons every year. As for the hospital wastewater,
they built a hospital wastewater treatment station with capacity of
100 m3 that swallowed up 80 wastewater drained daily by hospital and digest it into clear water meeting the SouthNorth Water

Diversion in Shanxi Province along the water pollutant discharge

standards
The black water outow from the coal washing plants is a hard
problem to deal with for the colliery. They constructed a coal sludge
water ltration plant that can recycle all the black water in closed
circulation pipes. Meanwhile, the slime can be retrieved and provided to the self-supporting power plant for electricity generation
or sold externally. The treatment stopped the out-drainage into the
farmland causing the pollution to the living environment and river
valley of surrounding area, created signicant economic, environment and social benets (Fig. 6).
4.2.5. Coal-bed methane
The coal-bed methane (CBM) is gas that is company with the coal
berried underground. The CBM is not only a waste gas in coal mining, but also a valuable natural resource. Extracted the CBM before
mining and utilized in industrial production or living burning is
conforming to the requirement of the recycling economy. Jincheng
colliery has established a base of the comprehensive utilization of
the CBM, which sets up a good example for other coal mines. At
present, its CBM extraction wells group have become the largest
scale in China, the CBM compression and liquefaction capacity is
the largest in Asia. The CBM has been widely used many industries,
such as civil usage, industrial production, power generating, car
fuel, etc. The recycling economy industrial chains mode is shown
as Fig. 7.
(1) Extraction overview
In Jincheng colliery, the principle for the CBM extraction is
extracting rstly on the ground, combining with the extraction
underground. The ground extraction is to establish the CBM
wells in the coal elds before coal mine well and the underground extraction is to gather the CBM by the 1000 m digger
in module type. In the Twelve Five-year period (20112015),
the JCAMG plans to construct 2000 the CBM extraction wells
at Fanzhuang, Zhenzhuang, Shizhuang and Dongda four mines
and layout the extraction modules, forming the ground and
underground extraction. In the process of the extraction, the
large-diameter, high-volume pipes, large-diameter holes, high
negative pressure extraction apparatus were used, totally six
mobile CBM pumps gathering 6070 m3 /min was equipped
with in the gassy outburst mines in 2007, which solved the
problem of the local outburst sites in mines. By the end of 2007,
the JCAMG had exploited annually the CBM 0.8 billion m3 and

L. Haibin, L. Zhenling / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 13311340

1339

Table 2
The CBM resources in Jincheng coal mines (unit: 109 m3 ).
Regions

Subtotal

Xieli
Panji, Gugou
Zhangji
Guqiao
Panbei, Zhuji
Zhangou
Shangyao
Xinji
Total

1096.04
1311.2
257.4
471.3
531.41
560.1
1232.46
467.77
5928.25

1000 m and above

1000 to 1500 m

64.5
276.61
127.37
230.31
173.45
375.4

732.44
885.6
130.17
241.42
359.96
184.85

158.07
1395.61

309.7
2842.41

Under 1500 m
299.05
158.72

1232.46

established a CBM driving power plant, Shihe plant, an Asias

largest CBM power plant (Table 2).
(2) The CBM utilization
The CBM utilization mainly include three ways: provide to
the surrounding cities and provinces for living, input into the
WestEast gas pipeline to the east, local power generation. There
are additionally other technical schedules.
Wind emission coal-bed methane (gas) reduction technique. As
wind emission gas concentration is generally less than 1%, it is
difcult to achieve stable combustion oxidation, only when the
ambient temperature maintained at 1000 C or above oxidation
can be effectively broken down into carbon dioxide and water.
There are two solutions, one is to keep the temperature above
1000 C, and another is to burn at relatively low temperature combustion oxidation stability by using the catalysts to reduce the
activation energy of the methane. By collecting the carbon dioxide combusted by the wind emission gas, it can be converted into
dry ice or compressed for sale, which also can achieve social and
economic benets. At present, the gas ow of air for combustion
technologies and reactor technology can reduce the wind emission
gas emitted directly to the atmosphere, which has good application
prospects.
Low concentration gas purication technology. As for the low
concentration gas, the general technology is to purify and convert
it into high concentration gas because the latter can be used in
many industrial elds. The puried gas not only can be used as
vehicle fuel, supplying for the Jincheng, ChangZhi, Linfen, Yuncheng
and Taiyuan and other cities, but also be taken as one of the gas
resource bases for the WestEast gas pipelines. Furthermore,
the gas can be liqueed and transported long distance to remote
area.
In addition, the CBM is also a high-quality raw chemical material
for synthetic methanol, synthetic ammonia and acetylene. It can
produce the carbon black applied to tire rubber industry, plastics
production, printing ink, battery, alloy, smelting, and so on.
In a word, they have found the paths to both ensure the safety
production and promote the economy growth of the company
through large scale extraction and comprehensive utilization.
5. Conclusion and recommendations
Through the above research, it can be found that coal mining
waste is serious threaten to the environment and urgent problem
to be solved for the government in China. The case study indicates
that the JCAMG has set up a good example for the coal mines. Based
on the recycling economy theory, the coal mining waste industrial
chains of comprehensive utilization is the effective solution for the
coal mining industrial waste. The scientic management mode in
the Jincheng colliery not only saves the natural resource, reduces
or avoids the environment pollution, but also turns the waste into
wealth, creates great social and economic benets. It is worth of
studying and learning for other mines.

1690.23

Meanwhile, the utilization pattern of coal mining waste has

the comprehensiveness and the diffusion quality, in which the
resources and material recycling patterns deserved learning.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 70773111) and the Ph.D. Programs
Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No. 109032) for their
nancial support. We are also grateful for the helpful comments
provided by two anonymous reviewers.

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