Tribo-electrostatic separation of coal and mineral particles: a review

Abstract

Tribo-electrostatic separation is a dry method to separate fine particulates. This review discusses tribo-charging: generation, mechanism, control, characterization, and application in tribo-electrostatic separation with a particular focus on coal and mineral particles. Different types of tribo-electrostatic separators used for coal and minerals and factors influencing their separation are reviewed in this paper. Various pretreatment methods are also discussed. There are works reported on the tribo-electrostatic separation of coal and minerals after chemical pretreatments. However, the present published works on chemical pretreatments are preliminary, and many scopes exist to improve the process. More research is required to establish powder dry separation using a tribo-electrostatic method as an industrial process for separating coal and mineral systems.