Federal Research Center for Coal and Coal Chemistry, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Kemerovo, Russia:

Yu. F. Patrakov, Head of Laboratory, Doctor of Chemical Sciences
L. V. Kuznetsova, Leading Researcher, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, lvk@icc.kemsc.ru
B. A. Anferov, Leading Researcher, Candidate of Engineering Sciences

The article addresses a topical problem on complete extraction of sapropelic coal and oil shale with preserving environmental balance in mineral mining areas of the lithosphere under heavy production load. At the present time in Russia, the long-term integrated program has been developed and is underway towards high-level processing of coal to use it efficiently both as a solid energy source and a raw material to produce wide range of solid, liquid and gaseous products at high added value, demandable in Russia and abroad, and to mitigate environmental impact in coal mining areas. The authors demonstrate potentiality of the proposed approach to industrial processing of sapropelic coal and oil shale in the Barzass area in Kuzbass, both economically (formation of a cluster) and technologically (technical and process solutions). An energy-chemical cluster is a system of technologically interconnected production units located in the same area and should include: a mine, a low-temperature coking plant, a boiler-house and a chemical plant to process ash after burning of pyrolysis waste. Ash of Barzass oil shale is suitable to produce building materials and for lime pretreatment of acid soils owing to high content of silicon oxide and calcium oxide, and to produce magnesium as magnesium oxide content of the ash meets the industrial recovery standards. Ash of sapropelic coal is applicable to production of alumina, magnesium and building materials. Moreover, the content of rubidium, gallium and columbium revealed in the ash exceeds the industrial recovery standards. Complete extraction of sapropelic coal and oil shale involves arrangement of sequential process flows to produce such marketable products from raw material and waste as fuel gas, liquid hydrocarbons, water steam, hot water, valuable components (depending on their content in the original raw material), building materials, mineral fertilizers, etc. The sound arrangement of all processes (starting from mining and finishing with marketable product manufacture) within an energy-chemical cluster will enable efficient, ecologyfriendly and waste-free production.

The study has been supported by the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, within Fundamental Research Program No. 27 (Project No. 27.6 “Evaluation of Science and Technology Solutions on Mining, Dressing and Integrated Utilization of Sapropelic Coal at Barzass Deposit, Kuzbass”).

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