Burning Fine and Pulverized Coal

donavan01 · Post by **donavan01** » Fri. Mar. 01, 2013 2:25 pm

I have been looking for a way to make use of a free resource I have at my disposal. I currently work in a coal testing lab where we take tons of coal daily and crush it down to the consistency of sand or smaller. Normally we take it to a customers location and just dump it in there pile and it gets mixed back in. But I'm looking for a way to use this. I have done some research into how to burn this and aside from doing a fuildized bed much like they use in power plants or injecting it into a blast furnace type design (which would burn too intensely) I cant come up with a way to burn this stuff. I have thought about making pellets or something like that but then im talking a huge overhead getting a pellet extruder or huge amounts of labor making them by hand. Anyone out there have any experience or insight that might prove helpful?

Berlin · Post by **Berlin** » Fri. Mar. 01, 2013 2:36 pm

You can make bricks or pellets from it and then use it in either a hand-fired appliance or (pellets) stoker. If it's very low coke button coal, you can burn it in an underfeed stoker, but the high agglomerating coals will not burn at all in an underfeed stoker as fines. there's a reason why it's so cheap and the cost differential between that material and a sized, cleaned, uniform stoker or lump coal is not great enough to make any such endeavour worthwhile.

McGiever · Post by **McGiever** » Fri. Mar. 01, 2013 4:21 pm

This century old design advertises to do just what you desire.

Air-Blast Fire Pot by Radiant Home

I recently acquired a stove w/ this very fire pot. I have yet to light a fire in it, though.

Can see it here... Picked up a Radiant Home Air Blast No. 264A...Have Some Q's ?

Post by **Lightning** » Fri. Mar. 01, 2013 4:36 pm

donavan01 wrote:injecting it into a blast furnace type design (which would burn too intensely)

Why not try this at a smaller scale?? Maybe push the coal powder thru a sand blasting device or similar? I don't know, but I'm betting it would be possible to come up with a powder spraying mechanism that could be turned on and off at demand.

LDPosse · Post by **LDPosse** » Fri. Mar. 01, 2013 6:09 pm

Berlin wrote:You can make bricks or pellets from it......

Any suggestions for doing this? I'm not sure what to use for a binding agent. I have about two 55 gallon drums full of fines from that load of ROM coal I bought.

Dennis · Post by **Dennis** » Fri. Mar. 01, 2013 6:41 pm

LDPosse wrote:
Berlin wrote:You can make bricks or pellets from it......
Any suggestions for doing this? I'm not sure what to use for a binding agent. I have about two 55 gallon drums full of fines from that load of ROM coal I bought.

What Do You Do With All Your Fines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWRUw20MsnE&featu ... creen&NR=1

blrman07 · Post by **blrman07** » Sat. Mar. 02, 2013 7:40 am

Yep...water and and a minute portion of portland cement. As it burns the portland turns back to powder. Give it a try and let us know how the hand molded coal balls work.

Rev. Larry

buffalo bob · Post by **buffalo bob** » Sat. Mar. 02, 2013 8:26 am

blrman07 wrote:Yep...water and and a minute portion of portland cement. As it burns the portland turns back to powder. Give it a try and let us know how the hand molded coal balls work.

Rev. Larry

try 4 parts coal dust and 1 part portland cement mix very stiff and (with rubber gloves on) make golf ball size balls and let dry for a few days...concrete reaches half of its strength in seven days ...full strength in 28 days...hell give it a try and report back...

donavan01 · Post by **donavan01** » Sat. Mar. 02, 2013 11:04 am

McGiever wrote:This century old design advertises to do just what you desire.

Air-Blast Fire Pot by Radiant Home

I recently acquired a stove w/ this very fire pot. I have yet to light a fire in it, though.
Can see it here... Picked up a Radiant Home Air Blast No. 264A...Have Some Q's ?

Great links I really wish it had some picutres of the inside so I could see how it was put together.

McGiever · Post by **McGiever** » Sat. Mar. 02, 2013 11:42 am

donavan01 wrote:
McGiever wrote:This century old design advertises to do just what you desire.

Air-Blast Fire Pot by Radiant Home

I recently acquired a stove w/ this very fire pot. I have yet to light a fire in it, though.
Can see it here... Picked up a Radiant Home Air Blast No. 264A...Have Some Q's ?
Great links I really wish it had some picutres of the inside so I could see how it was put together.

On the first link, have you scrolled down? The fire pot is illustrated there.
I'll be adding some pics at the second link sometime later.

donavan01 · Post by **donavan01** » Tue. Mar. 05, 2013 9:26 am

Yes I actually did see the picture there and although it seems to show some detail I cant seem to figure out exactly whats going on ... Would something like this still be around in a quantity high enough to actually find one on the cheap?

carlherrnstein · Post by **carlherrnstein** » Tue. Mar. 05, 2013 9:47 am

florance hot blasts come up of craigs list once in a while I have seen them from $200-$1000 Also check out the warm morning stoves I see them often for $100-$400

McGiever · Post by **McGiever** » Tue. Mar. 05, 2013 9:51 am

Yes, Air Blast can be found w/ some persistence in searching.

Germer's were mfgr'd in Erie,PA and every so often one will turn up on regional Craig's Lists.

Most common one will look like this...Germer Radiant Home Air-Blast

davidmcbeth3 · Post by **davidmcbeth3** » Sun. Nov. 03, 2013 12:49 pm

Why not just bag the fines and toss bags into the fire?

You can get bags of almost any dimension ... paper or plastic ...

Packaging them should be a breeze...

Post by **Lightning** » Sun. Nov. 03, 2013 12:52 pm

davidmcbeth3 wrote:Why not just bag the fines and toss bags into the fire?

The bags burn up and spill fines all over the coal, inhibiting it's burn..