Enrichment effect of coal and quartz particles in gas-solid fluidized bed with applied electrical field

Abstract Electrostatic effects are commonly found in gas-solid fluidized beds. With an electrical field applied in a gas-solid fluidized bed, the charged particles there would be separated according to the opposite charge polarity. A charge-to-mass ratio test showed that quartz can easily be given a negative charge when tribo-charging with coal. A binary particle mixture was employed to explore the enrichment effect in an electrical-field fluidized bed unit. The results showed that the mass fraction of quartz in the products decrease gradually from negative plate to positive plate. The increase of fluidization time, plate voltage and gas velocity, along with low bed height, were beneficial to the improvement of the enrichment effect. The mass fraction of quartz close to the positive plate was >40%, while that of negative was around 10%. This work demonstrate the possibility of separating fine coal using a fluidized bed with applied electrical field.