Coal Preparation Plant Design Requirements for 2050

Coal preparation technology has come a long way in the past 35 years. Larger unit operations with enhanced efficiency, increased availability and new technologies in fines processing have been developed and implemented on a global scale in this timeframe. But where to for the next 35 years? This paper proposes the concept of developing an operator-free preparation plant as the vision for future coal preparation development. This will result in much more compact plant designs unencumbered with having to provide the necessary floor space and headroom for operators and maintenance staff to safely and freely access all parts of the plant. This will allow the cost effective application of small scale distributed plants across large multi-pit mine sites to optimise the overall coal chain by minimising raw coal and waste haulage. A large number of technical, operating, maintenance and management challenges will need to be addressed if this vision is to be implemented.