By Taylor Kuykendall

Developers of a new coal preparation technology say they can separate coarser coals from ash at a lower cost than traditional chemical processes.

Mineral Separation Technologies Inc., the creator of the DriJet 100, publicly announced March 21 that it can separate coal from ash without using water or chemicals. Charles D. Roos, founder and CEO of Mineral Separation Technologies, said the air-based process has been field-tested and is now available to coal companies nationwide. The chairman of the company is Charles E. Roos.

The portable machine uses X-rays to identify the atomic weight of the coal particles before separating the coal from ash using air jets. The DriJet is small enough to fit on a highwall mining bench.

"It's cleaner and cheaper than anything else out there," Charles D. Roos told SNL Energy. "Currently, you must use those chemicals to get good separation efficiency when you're separating ash from coal. We're providing a different option."

The company is introducing the product just weeks after the spill of thousands of gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or MCHM, a coal preparation chemical, contaminated the water of 300,000 West Virginia residents. Freedom Industries, the company responsible for storing the MCHM, has since filed for bankruptcy as it faces millions in potential lawsuits and other liabilities.

While liability reduction is a selling point, the company says the process also significantly decreases mining costs. Charles D. Roos said the decreases vary from mine to mine, but customers can generally save around $4/ton by reducing transportation and waste storage costs.

In just one second, the DriJet can examine and sort more than 20,000 pieces of coal. Charles D. Roos said the technology was developed more than 10 years ago to separate mixed metals, plastics and mixed recyclables. In the beginning, he added, the technology was only viable for very-high-value waste streams such as mixed stainless steel that could yield a $1,000/ton product.

"About five years ago, we realized the electronics are a lot faster now and the sensors more sensitive — and said let's look for materials streams that are larger, but possibly not worth as much money," Charles D. Roos said.

Coal, which is relatively plentiful but typically sells for less than $100/ton, was a perfect fit, he said.

The company is primarily focusing its operations on Central Appalachia, where mining operations are smaller and better fit the capabilities and processing speed of the DriJet. There has been considerable interest in the product, Charles D. Roos said, though some operators in the challenged Central Appalachian basin have been hesitant to take a risk on new technologies in the current market.

The first DriJet is going to McDowell County, W.Va., where West Virginia Coal Reclamation Co. LLC plans to use it to clean coal produced from surface coal wastes stored in gob piles.

"We decided that rather than the put the coal in a truck and drive it 20 miles to a wash plant, it'd be better if we could just clean it on site for a lot less money," Gene Ricciardi, a managing partner with West Virginia Coal Reclamation, told SNL Energy.

Ricciardi said he was impressed by initial tests, though he and his business partner Joel Cornfield have not yet tried the equipment on a full shift of processing. He added that the technology can filter their coal from a product with a 60% rejection rate to one with a 25% to 30% rejection rate.

"It increases the value of our coal so much, it's a no-brainer," Ricciardi said "… The [cost of the] machine is nothing relative to what we're getting back."

Ricciardi said it would cost four times as much to truck and clean the coal by conventional methods.

According to Charles D. Roos, the equipment is provided to an operator on a per-ton basis and does not require an upfront capital investment.