Energy Technology

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Experimental Analysis of Coal Upgrading: The Case of Dawuro, Southern, Ethiopia
(Addis Ababa University, 2021-09) Muluken, Filmon; Wondoson, Bogale (PhD)
Coal has been major energy source for cement, steel and chemical industry in Ethiopia and also the country has high coal deposit. However, Ethiopian Coal is low in quality and calorific value and high sulfur, ash, and volatile content. Due to this, almost all local and international industries do not like to use Ethiopian coal. Hence, this study experiment on the ways of upgrading or enhancing the low quality of Ethiopian coal to high quality. Fluidized bed or dry cleaning is used to separate impurities from raw coal based on density difference, and chemical cleaning method is used to remove sulfur content by leaching with hot alkaline solution. The experimental result shows that Fluidized bed and washing machine have a capacity to upgrade its calorific value from 3000kcal/kg to 6,600kcal/kg, reduce moisture content from 37% to 5%, ash content, 27% to 4%, volatile matter 8% to 3.43%, reduce Sulfur content from 1.5% to 0.45%. Chemical cleaning effectively removes almost all sulfur up to 99% but high cost. Physical cleaning is effective in cost rather than chemical cleaning. This shows that it’s possible to use low graded coal by upgrading its qualities.