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 Study on the Waste Recycling and Reuse Patterns in Coal Mines
ZhenlingLiu
School of Management
Henan University of Technology
Zhengzhou, China
wjhaut@163.com
GangLi
Department of Resources and Environmental Engineering
Henan Institute of Engineering
Zhengzhou, China
Abstract-Since 2006, China has become the largest coal
production and consumption country in the world. Thus, the
coal mining waste has become the greatest threaten to the
environment and sustainability. According to the recycling
economy thought, many coal mining waste can be reused and
recycled that can produce great benefits for enterprises and
regions. In this paper, the recycling economy thought is
introduced for its population. Then, based on the thought, the
reuse and recycles of the coal mining waste practice are
assigned according to the waste characteristics. The research
result indicated that the recycling economy is the best chose for
the economy and society sustainable development.
Keywords- coal mining waste, recycling economy, industrial
chains; material flow
I. INTRODUCTION
Coal mmmg waste has become the main industrial
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 2 716Mt raw coal, accounting for
approximately 40% of the total production in the world and
overtaken the United States as the world's biggest producer
of carbon dioxide. As coal mining waste is part of the raw
coal, the more coal production, the more waste to be deal
with. The coal mining waste are coal gangue, coal slime, fly
ash, coal mine drainage, coal bed methane (CBM). If the
waste disposed improperly, it would threaten to the
environment and bring about serious pollutions, fmally
become the constraints to economy development.
The coal gangue is the largest component of industrial
solid waste in China. It is argued that coal gangue takes up
about 10 percents of the total raw coal produced, i.e. more
than 200 million tones gangue need to be deal with every
year. At present, it has accumulated more than 4000 Mt
gangue piling on land, which occupied more than 20 k
978-1-4244-6932-1/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE
387
Zhengquan Guo
School of Management
China University of Mining & Technology(Beijing)
Beijing, China
Wenbo Tan
School of Management
China University of Mining & Technology (Beijing)
Beijing, China
hectares land. 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. The
hazardous is as following.
• Natural calamity, such as landslide and debris flow
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 omitting
into the atmosphere
• acid rain formation near the gangue mountain
• noxious substance polluting the groundwater
Coal sludge and fly-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 calorific value.
Coal fly-ash is the leavings after the coal burning in the
power plant. There is annual production of fly-ash more than
150 million tones. As it is very small and light, it is very easy
to fly with wind. If not scientifically treated, it is easy to
pollute the environment of the mining area for polluting the
water, atmosphere, soil and occupying land. The traditional
treatment may cause
• potential toxicant 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 people's 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 heavily 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, the mine water sums to about 2.2 billion,
3
averaging 4 m water per ton coal production. If untreated,
the water combining with heavy metal ions such as iron and
mercury ions would defmitely pollute the groundwater.
Nevertheless, it will wasted 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 flammable gas
which is accompanied with the coal resource. As it is
flammable, 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. For the
CBM is greenhouse gas, the effectively utilizing of CBM
become important in the recycling economy.
Therefore, the coal mine wastes have already been one of
the major threats to environment and how to scientifically
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 followings.
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,
meanwhile their economic benefit are analyzed. Finally, the
conclusion is summarized.
II. RECYCLING ECONOMY THEORY
A. 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 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 flow,
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 flow, 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
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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.
/0\,
IR��H�·Hw�'h
<S>0-- i
Figure l. The flow of product in recycling economy
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.
B. Meaning for coal mines
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 benefits.
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 calorific 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 IGCqintegrated gasification
Comprehensive circulation) technology brings c?al
combustion gases to drive the generators and steam turbme
generator; the fly-ash of power plant, slag, etc. used for
producing construction material, land reclaiming, backfill
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
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 efficiency of
resources, to make resources advantages turn into the
economic advantage. These benefits not only improve the
economic benefits of the coal mining enterprise, but promote
the development of other industries.
In short, the world has entered an era of diversified
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. Develop
the recycling has become important solution to the coal
mining wastes treatment and energy savings.
III. RECLYING ECONOMY MODE FOR COAL MINES
A. Green industrial chains
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 coal chemical 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 first one is core chains of recycling economy. It
includes the exploitation of coal&CBM, coal washing, coal­
electricity, coal-chemical industry, mining water, harbors,
road and other related industries, in order to continuously
improve the Group's 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, fly-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
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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 figure 2.
---�
Figure 2. The industrial chains of recycling economy
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 benefits. In the colliery of the JCAMG, the
comprehensive utilization of coal gangue includes electricity
generation, coverage, landfill, and forestation, as shown in
figure 4.
Power generating. Coal gangue used to power generating
is an important way to dispose the solid waste, which mainly
makes use of calorific value at 3350-6280 kJ/kg of waste
rock, using sophisticated technology of the 75t1h Circulating
Fluidized Bed Boiler, mixed fuel coal gangue with slime for
power generation. This technology has solved the difficult
problem of different low calorie fuels mixed together.
According to statistics, no less than 560,000 tons of gangue
is bumt 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
landfill. How to cover the gangue? Usually, the gangue unfit
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 field 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.
Landfill can be divided into two methods as the conventional
landfill and sanitary landfill. Conventional landfill method is
to fill 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
Landfill is the world's most commonly used in solid waste
treatment technology. It is on the site scientifically selected,
to use the necessary protective means and reasonable landfill
structure, try to mitigate and eliminate the solid waste
pollution on the environment. Sanitary landfill 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. Supposed that every 1000 cubic meters of coal
gangue takes up 40 square meters, the total gangue discarded
by the coal mines, more that 500,000 cubic meters annually
in the JCAMG, would occupy more than 2 hectares 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 confirmed that these indexes
don't exceed the national standard and the gangue can be
used to reclamation and fill land. Coal mining subsidence
area gradually expanded, with an average depth of 4.3 meters
collapsed, the biggest sinking depth of 8 meters. 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, refilling 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
filling waste, reduce waste water permeability and water
contented in the gangues, so as to prevent the leaching of
heavy metals and other harmful substances leaking into the
ground water. At present, land subsidence has control over
2,000 acres, 6,000 acres are being implemented under the
governance and planning treatment. On the other hand, the
refilling areas are tidied through filling 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, fly ash brick factory, Liquefied Petroleum Gas
(LPG) station, training base and so on are built one by one in
these refilling 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 tones 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 160-200 sq. meters, courtyard area of
70-100 sq. meters. This project was identified as one of the
top ten Technological Demonstration Projects of Sustainable
Development in Shanxi Province.
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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 comer of the subside
area was transformed into a man-made lake, covering 14 670
sq. meters, a pavilion and bridge built inside the lake, fish in
water, willow on the lakeside, a garden of 8000 sq. meters
and a leisure fitness plaza entertainment of 16 000 sq. meters.
The colliery district has become a beautiful landscape
matched together with mountain and trees, flowers, the
environment elegant beautiful scenery, so that the waste rock
pile into an ecological park, creating significant
environmental protection, land reclamation, economic and
social benefits.
r·····················································"1
L .....................................................3 ���--'====.J
Figure 3. The comprehensive utilization of the coal gangue
3) Coal sludge andjly-ash
Coal sludge or slime is the tailed coal after mechanical
dewatering of coal in the coal washing process. It can flow
with the water, but air-dried quickly to ash and fly 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 tum it into resource. Taking the
Chengzhuang coal mine as example, it has produced about
180,000 tons sludge ever 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 profit 40 Million Yuan
RMB annually. The project not only effectively supplement
power supply for coal mine, creating significant economic
benefits, but also make full use of waste heat of power
generation to supply the mine office and staff conducted a
focus on residential heating, heating up an area of 1,000,000
square meters, equivalent to 10 large-scale heating boiler
room, eliminating the heating boiler soot pollution, annual
savings of more than 10 million tons of coal-fired 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 fly-ash left in the hearth. Before the
recycling economy implemented, the ash was transported or avoids the environment pollution, but turns the waste into
outside subside area by cars. Because the fly-ash is small, wealth, creates great social and economic benefits. It is worth
light, easy to disperse with the wind, it can cause a certain of studying and learning for other mines.
amount of pollution. In order to treat the waste scientifically,
the Jincheng colliery launched a project of fly-ash replacing REFERENCES
the loess defending and extinguishing fire grouting [1] BP. Statistical Review of World Energy 2008. (London, 2008).
underground. The fly-ash is easily to dehydrate and pile up, http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=6929&contentld=
7044622
which overcome the defects of loess in mud flow impedance,
difficulty in piled up. After the fly-ash slurry infused into the [2] Hao, Z. Comprehensive Utility of coal gangue in China. China New
Technologies and Products ,81-82 (2008).
loose body, it can soon dehydrate and pile up, blocking the
[3] Xiaojun, H. Environmental Damage and New Uses Technology of
hole, which bring about great benefits, saving the soil
Fly-ash. GuangOongHuaGong 34,77-79 (2007).
resource, get high quality frreproofmg materials. In addition,
[4] Wei w., Huanqiang Z. Harm of Fly-ash to Environment and Its
the fly-ash is added into the cement and other solidifying Multipurpose Utilization. Research & Application of Building
material using in the lane reconstruction in the well, which is Materials ,4-6 (2007).
solid, stable, labor-and-time-saving, cost-saving and improve [5] Zhenling L. Should sustainable consumption and production be a
the ability in frreproofmg. policy Priority for developing countries and if so, what areas should
There is another way to utilize the fly-ash, which is to they focus on? (1). Natural Resources Forum,2010,34(1): 85-88.
add into material producing the colored brick. In order to [6] Zhenling L. The improvement of the shift-share analysis model and
application in the industrial structure analysis of the central urban
reduce the pollution of the fly-ash to the maximum extent,
agglomeration in Liaoning province. In 2009 16th International
the Jincheng colliery launched a project of blocks molding Conference on Management Science and Engineering, ICMSE 2009,
colored brick. The project produced more than 500,000 September 14,2009 - September 16,2009,; IEEE Computer Society:
colored bricks annually, achieved revenues of 1.5 million Moscow,Russia,2009; pp 1004-1010.
Yuan, 300,000 Yuan of profits, 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 kilogram clay, the
project could save the clay more than 10,000 tones which not
only beautify the environment, save the fund, but improve
economic efficiency, save the valuable land resources.
Besides the above ways of fly-ash utilization, there are
other ways to reuse the waste: filling it in the mined-out area,
grouting separated strata zone in overburden in wells, surface
subsidence mitigation, producing aluminum with the high­
aluminum fly-ash.

I Fly-ash
I
I
I I
Grouting in
I I
Building separated Filling
material Aluminum
strata goaf
zone

Figure 4. The comprehensive utilization of the fly-ash

IV. CONCLUSION

Through the above research, it can be found that coal

mining waste is serious threatens to the environment and
urgent to be solved problems for the governments in China.
The case study indicates that the JCAMG has set up a good
example for the coal mines. Base on the recycling economy
theory, the coal mining waste industrial chains of
comprehensive utilization is the effective solution for the
industrial waste. The scientific management mode in the
Jincheng colliery not only saves the natural resource, reduces

391