Comments on the Use of Tracers to Test Dense-Medium Plant Efficiency

Separation efficiency tests are expensive, cumbersome to conduct, and the results of the tests are only known days or even weeks after the test has been conducted. This reduces the value of the tests. Density tracers have been used in the past to obtain a rapid assessment of dense-medium plant efficiency, but the application of tracers has been very restricted by virtue of the fact that they are very difficult to recover from amongst the coal particles on product and discard screens. For this reason, tracers have been largely used to test plants operating without a load. Newer types of tracers and novel methods of using existing tracers are now being used to test coal preparation plants while under load to provide very valuable information regarding the efficiency of the plants.