DOE, Antaeus Energy to Recover Waste Coal from Disposal Ponds

Expected to Create Jobs in West Virginia, Pennsylvania

Coal processing frequently leaves residual waste ponds that are of little commercial value. Up to 200 new jobs could be created in West Virginia and Pennsylvania following an effort to clean up a waste pond in the mountain state, one of 400 such ponds containing about 2 billion tons of bituminous waste coal in the eastern U.S. The clean up is possible due to a new recovery process that could allow an energy company to make a profit by recovering coal from the ponds.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Federal Energy Technology Center (FETC) is currently helping Antaeus Energy, of Wakefield, Massachusetts, evaluate the recovery process. The recovered coal will be used in an advanced mild gasification process to produce valuable char and coke products for sale to the steel industry. FETC funded the development of the advanced mild gasification process through Coal Technology Corporation of Bristol, Va., a division of Antaeus, and assisted in the evaluation of a coal recovery technique.

Antaeus is currently designing a continuous coke processing plant in Gary, West Virginia, about 20 miles west of Bluefield, and plans to complete construction near the end of 1999. Coal processing invloves sorting, upgrading, and cleaning coal to meet end-user specifications in a coal preparation facility. In conjunction with a coal preparation plant now being refurbished at the same location, the new process plant will upgrade waste coal from an abandoned fine coal pond at a 900-acre site in Gary. At the abandoned pond, Antaeus will be able to convert the waste coal fines into a feedstock for use in the company's patented char- and coke-making technology. When all of the waste coal fines are removed, Antaeus plans to revegetate the land.

"FETC provided us with the test results and clean coal product that we needed to finalize the design of our char/coke plant," said Antaeus Energy Chief Executive Officer Stephen J. Barber. "This will lead to the construction of a facility in Gary that will use our environmentally friendly, proprietary technology for making char and high-quality coke. With their assistance, we are upgrading our coal recovery operations -- a process that will also help to restore a former waste area."

The waste coal fines will be reclaimed, upgraded, and pyrolyzed to produce char at the Gary site. The char would then be transported to Shanango, Inc., at Neville Island (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) for production of coke briquettes used in steel making. Antaeus plans to merge with Shenango and expects the merger to be completed in September 1998. Once the new plant construction is complete and the coke-making process is under way, 50 to 100 jobs are expected to be created in Gary to operate the new plant, and an additional 50 to 100 jobs should arise at the briquette plant on Neville Island.

FETC has been a national leader in research associated with coal processing and assisted Antaeus Energy in upgrading the waste coal from the coal pond. To ensure that the clean coal product had a low ash and moisture content, FETC had to first determine the feasibility of cleaning the pond fines by using column flotation technology and dewatering the flotation concentrate. FETC's Solids Processing and Separation Division conducted the research at its Solids Processing Research Facility, which features an integrated 1000 pound- per-hour column flotation and centrifuge circuit. Using the column flotation circuit, FETC researchers processed 80 tons of pond fines containing 35 percent moisture and produced 42 tons of clean coal product containing about 5 percent ash and 20 percent moisture. The clean coal product met Antaeus Energy's feedstock requirements.

Antaeus Energy, a producer of energy and related products, uses innovative expertise and cutting-edge technology to reclaim and convert coal mine wastes into marketable high-quality coke and synthetic fuel products, while restoring and redeveloping mine property in an environmentally sound manner.

FETC, one of DOE's major field organizations, manages and implements a broad spectrum of energy and environmental programs. FETC, which employs approximately 1,100 federal and support-service contractor employees at its two sites located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Morgantown, West Virginia, is the largest fossil energy research organization in the U.S.

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