JOURNEY OF A COKING COAL PARTICLE I am a tiny bit of coal. So what!

You can hardly imagine the limits to which mankind can go in order to utilize my enormous potential. Let me share my experience in a small place in Bokaro Steel City viz. the Coke Oven & By Product Plant complex of Bokaro Steel Plant. Here I come as the black, sedimentary, rock-like, poorly conducting complex fossil fuel of the bituminous and coke forming variety via ships and railways from such faraway places as Australia, New Zealand & USA and the nearby ones like Chasnalla, Pathardih, Dughda, Sudamdih, Bhojudih, Moonidih, Mahuda, Madhuban, Belatand & Jamadoba which are of the Prime Coking Coal variety and Kathara, Kedla, Mahuda, Rajrappa & Swang which are of the Medium Coking and hence inferior coal type. The wagon tipplers transfer me from the railway box wagons to the tippler bunkers. Subsequently, a number of belt conveyors carry me forward, like a baton in a relay race, to the top of the coal storage bunkers or silos. The tripper cars at the silo top then place me in one particular silo according to the place I come from. There are 81 silos in all, each 38 m high and 12 m in diameter, which can store up to 2,01,750 tons collectively of your truly and friends and relatives and can cater to twenty days demand of the coke oven batteries. I come from different places and am kept separated source-wise in the silos. However, I mix with my other place brethrens shortly afterwards on the belt conveyors placed underneath the silos. These carry us with the help of other conveyors to the hammer crushers. Our mixing is facilitated by the electronic weigh feeders which are placed beneath the silos from which we go to the belt conveyors. The weigh feeders operate in such a fashion that our proportion from the different places tally with the theoretical coal blend. We come in different shapes and sizes and have to be crushed in the hammer crushers, for the sake of uniformity, since the fall down the tippler bunkers, conveyor transfer chutes and silos doesnt help all that much. Somehow, man is unable to assimilate the individuality of each particle and puts forth the excuse that crushing will improve coke strength by providing a homogeneous coke micro-structure. It increases the amount of total suspended particulates in the atmosphere but leaves 80 % of us of a size less than 3.2 mm. The belt conveyors again work in tandem to transport us from the hammer crushers to the Coke Oven Battery coal tower coal bins. These are four in number and each coal bin is attached to two Batteries, one on either side thus making a total of eight Batteries. The cuboidal coal bins, which are 24 m long, 13 m wide and 24 m high, are again sub-divided into four pockets and we are diverted to the more empty pocket by shuttle conveyors. Each pocket has three rows and each row has three openings, which are closed by gates, from which we are fed into the Charging Cars. The Charging Cars then feed us into each of the 69 ovens of a Coke Oven Battery in 5-2 series and within a certain time frame, all the above operations being facilitated by the earths gravitational pull, the pneumatic blow down system in the coal bins and the gate openers and vibrators in the Charging Cars. The 5-2 series of charging and pushing implies that the ovens are filled with coal and the coke is pushed out in the following manner viz. 69, 64, , 9, 4; 67, 62, , 7, 2; 65, 60, , 10, 5; 68, 63, , 8, 3; 66, 61, , 6, 1. Thus, we find that two series are followed at a time alternately and after it is complete the next two series are followed alternately such that there is a difference of two between it and the previous two series. This series facilitates less machine wear and tear compared to the 9-2 series, which we used to follow previously, by minimizing machine movement. Further, refractory jobs can be carried out in the ovens for a longer period of time. We tend to become dry with the passage of time and have to be sprayed with water to have a working moisture content of 7 % which maximizes our bulk density to 850 kg/m 3 and, in turn, helps in maximizing coke strength and, ultimately, coke yield. An excellent case of fattening the

calf before the kill, dont you feel! The average distance that we have to traverse from the wagon tipplers to the coal tower coal bins is roughly 3 km. With our introduction into the trapezoidal slot ovens or coking chambers, which are 15.02 m long, 0.39 m wide on one side and 0.43 m wide on the other, to facilitate pushing out of the coke, and 5 m high, starts our liquidation, as we are roasted in the near absence of air by the glowing heating walls of the ovens at 1200C. 20.11 tons of us, on dry basis, are placed in each oven by the Charging Cars. The irony is that we stew in our own juice as the gas which heats up the oven walls is provided by us. Let me now narrate the story of my pyrolysis or destructive distillation as experimentally found by Prof. D.W.Van-Krevleen of the Netherlands. We start getting hot from the side walls and become soft and plastic in nature, at the same time losing the surface moisture and previously absorbed gases which are water vapour, CO2, O2, N2 and CH4 at a temperature below 200C. Between 200 - 300C, we become slightly rounded. At the first critical temperature level of 350 - 450C, tar and oils evolve and we start sporting spores. At the same time, the reactive macerals in us form an impervious plastic mass. This plastic layer has a thickness varying from 15 40 mm and is characterized by a large temperature drop and high resistance to flow of gases across its width. It moves away from the side walls of the oven as our temperature rises to about 600C and semi-coke, which occupies more space, is formed in its place. The volume increase is due to the formation of an anisotropic ordered mosaic bubble or cellular structure in the semi-coke after the gases have made their way out and upwards through the plastic zone. High molecular weight liquid and gas are evolved between 600 - 700C. The second critical temperature starts from 700 - 1000C when large amounts of H2 is released and the semi-coke shrinks and hardens to the final coke structure, which has a graphite lattice, thus becoming conducting, with secondary cementations and occupying less volume than that which we occupied when initially placed in the oven. The plastic layer moves inwards from both sides of the oven walls and forms a line of median crack where they meet. The rate of carbonization or our transformation into coke which progresses from the side walls and goes inward depends on the oven heating wall temperature and it is 12 mm/hr at 1200C. This means that the coking period or the time it takes for us to transform into coke is roughly 18 hours. The median temperature of the coke is 1050C at the end of coking period. Coke is strongest near the side wall of the ovens and the red hot mass is pushed out from the oven at the end of coking period with the help of the Pusher Car, Guide Car and into the Quenching Car. It weighs 16 tons and is quenched in the Quenching Towers and transported to Coke Sorting Plant for further distribution to Blast Furnace, Sinter Plant, Foundries and other places. Gas, moisture, tar and oils are removed by the Hydraulic Mains and Liquor Pipelines situated at the top of the Batteries and conveyed to the By Product Plant. The gas yield per oven is 6000 m3 at NTP and the gas make is 100 m3/hr approximately. It comprises of 58 % H2, 25 % CH4, 8 % CO, 3.7 % N2, 2.5 % CmHn, 2.5 % CO2 and 0.3 % O2 on dry basis and has a Gross Calorific Value of 4400 kcal/m3 at NTP. The Ammonia yield per oven is roughly 60 kg and the tar yield per oven approximately 600 kg. In _______ 2011, seven Batteries were running and coke was pushed out of the ovens _________times while the gas yield was________ . Now that I have come to the end of my journey and passed away in a blaze, dont you think that my life has been really fulfilling. Some might quip that by dying I have done more for mankind by providing precious coke and gas. No matter what, I have had a rollicking journey and hope you have found my experience most informative and entertaining.