Process for the beneficiation of carbonaceous matter employing high shear conditioning

Claim 2

A process for beneficiating coal comprising admixing coal in an aqueous medium, under high shear admixing conditions with a polymerizable monomer, and a liquid organic carrier, thereby rendering said coal hydrophobic and oleophilic.

Claim 3

A process according to claim 1 further comprising subjecting the hydrophobic and oleophilic coal to at least one water washing, the water washing comprising admixing said hydrophobic and oleophilic coal with water under high shear admixing conditions to form a coal froth phase and an aqueous phase and recovering the coal froth phase.

Claim 4

The process according to claim 2 wherein at least one of the water washings is carried out in the presence of a polmerizable monomer, a polymerization catalyst, a liquid organic carrier or mixtures thereof.

Claim 5

The process according to any of claims 1 = 3 wherein the polymerizable monomer is comprised of a compound having the formula wherein R is an olefinically unsaturated radical, R' is selected from hydrogen, a salt forming cation, a saturated or ethylenically unsaturated hydrocarbyl radical, the hydrocarbyl radical being unsubstituted or substituted with one or more members selected from halogen, carboxylic acid groups, hydroxyl groups, or hydroxyl groups in which the hydroxy hydrogen atom is replaced with a saturated or unsaturated acyl group or a combination or saturated and unsaturated acyl groups and mixtures thereof.

Claim 6

The process according to claim 4 wherein the polymerizable monomer is tall oil, corn oil or mixtures thereof.

Claim 7

The process according to any of claims 1 to 4 wherein a polymerization catalyst, a free radical initiator or mixtures thereof is admixed with the coal, aqueous medium polymerizable monomer and liquid organic carrier under high shear admixing.

Claim 8

The process according to claim 6 wherein the free radical initiator is an inorganic water soluble metal salt, organic metal salt or mixtures thereof, wherein the metal is iron, zinc, antimony, arsenic, copper, tin, cadmium, silver, gold, platinum, chromium, mercury, aluminum, cobalt, nickel or lead.

Claim 9

The process according to claim 6 or 7 wherein the free radical initiator is cupric nitrate, corn oil or hydrogen peroxide.

Claim 10

The process according to any of claims 1 to 8 wherein the coal is pulverized in the presence of water.

Claim 11

. The process according to any of claims 1 to 9 wherein the liquid organic carrier is fuel oil, benzene, toluene, xylene, naphtha and medium boiling petroleum fractions, dimethylformamide, tetrahydrofuran, tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol, dimethylsulfoxide, methanol, ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, acetone methylethyl ketone, ethyl acetate or mixtures thereof.

Claim 12

The process of any of claims 1 to 10 wherein the coal is low rank coal, vertical retort residues, coal fines or concentrated coal pipeline streams.

Claim 13

The process according to any of claims 1 to 11 wherein the water further contains a water conditioning additive.