• Resources Recycling
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.40-47
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• 2014

Feasibility of utilizing unburned carbon residue in coal ash as a potential precursor for the production of activated carbon was assessed to seek for solution to recycle unburned carbon residue. The unburned carbon concentrate generated from the 4 stages of cleaner flotation has a grade of 87% carbon. The crystalline impurities in the concentrate included quartz and mullite. Unburned carbon had a low specific surface area of $10m^2/g$, which might be related to a high degree of coalification of domestic anthracite coal. Carbon particles were mostly porous and have a turbostratic structure. When 1g of carbon was activated with 6g of KOH powder, the highest specific surface area value of $670m^2/g$ was achieved. Low wettability of unburned carbon particles, which was resulted from high temperature combustion in a boiler, might cause poor pore formation when they were activated by KOH solution. The activated carbon produced in this study developed micropores, with an equivalent quality of general-purpose activated carbon made from coal. Hence, it is concluded that chemically treated unburned carbon can be used for water purification or an alternative to carbon black as it is.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.3-14
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• 2020

This study aims to introduce and review on the recovery technologies of rare earth elements(REEs) from coal ash. Many researchers have been carried out by various beneficiation processes, such as particle size separation, magnetic separation, specific gravity, and flotation to recover rare earth elements from coal ash generated from Pulverized Coal(PC) boiler. Through the beneficiation process, it was confirmed that concentration of rare earth elements was much lower than the 4,700 ppm, and that additional enrichment treatment through wet process was needed for the products recovered after the beneficiation process. It was confirmed that the rare earth elements contained in coal ash were applied to the leaching process after pretreatment such as alkali-fusion to improve leaching efficiency. Although beneficiation and leaching methods have been studied, its optimum recovery technologies for rare earth elements not been confirmed up to now, research on the recovery of rare earth contained in coal ash is reported to continue. In case of Korea, the technology for the recovery of rare earth elements from coal ash and coal by-product could not been confirmed up to present. In these reasons, it is urgent to develop technologies such as beneficiation and leaching process continuously.