Investigationof organic sulphur removability from lignite coal

In this study, removability of organic and pyritic sulphur from lignite with high sulphur content of different regions of Turkey (Çanakkale/Çan, Kütahya/Tavşanlı-Tuçbilek) has been investigated. Chemical leaching methods were used to find the effect of various types of acids, bases and metallic cations. The heating process was carried out with classical heating instruments and ultrasonic/microwave reactors. The best results were taken from the HNO3+C2Cl4 media combination with ultrasonic/microwave reactors and the total sulphur contents of respectively 0.49%, 0.52% and 0.51 from the ÇLİ,GLİ, and YLİ coals with respectively 4.77%, 3.89%, and 4.37% total sulphur contents were handled. In addition, the ash content of the ÇLİ coals with 54.98% was reduced to 31.33%, the GLİ coals with 53.04% was reduced to 30.04% and the YLİ coals with 32.50% was reduced to 17.48%. Sulphur removal process (HNO3+C2Cl4 with ultrasonic/microwave reactors) was also been applied to the clean (lave) coals with density of 1.6 gr/cm³ which had been washed in heavy media (physical process) and the contents of ÇLİ coals with initially having 54.98% ash and % 4.77 sulphur were reduced to respectively 30.30% ash and 4.1 % sulphur through washing process in heavy media, and 26.87 % ash and 0.43% sulphur through chemical removal process. The same procedure was applied to GLİ coals initially having 53.04% ash and 3.89% sulphur content and the contents were reduced to 28.30% ash and 3.27 % sulphur through washing processand 25.63% ash and 4.03% sulphur through chemical removal process. The initial contents of YLİ coals having 32.50% ash and 4.37% sulphur were respectively reduced to 21.1% ash and 4.03% sulphur content through washing process and 16.78% ash and 0.43% sulphur content through chemical removal process.