Macedonian lignite - upgrading and evaluation

Macedonian lignites have a high moisture content, low heating value, and are friable, generating fines and dust. Macedonia has an urgent need to use indigenous solid fuel resources for domestic and industrial heating as well as metallurgical applications. The goal of this project was to evaluate the potential for beneficiating Macedonian lignite and producing high-quality briquettes for metallurgical use as well as domestic/industrial heating. Laboratory studies have shown that treating the Macedonian lignite fines by two physical processes-cleaning and carbonization-followed by pelletizing. can generate acceptable lump fuels for heating applications. Carbonizing the float-sink-cleaned lignite to reduce the volatile matter content and pelletizing the resultant char with starch produced strong pellets, which could be used as a home-heating fuel, the char having a heat content of 13,400 Btu/lb (31.2 MJ/Kg). However, additional work is required at the pilot scale to determine optimum briquetting conditions and production costs. (Author)