Patent ID: 8262751

Claim:
An improved organo-refining process to produce low ash clean coal from high ash coal, in particular suitable for metallurgical applications, the method comprising the steps of: mixing coal, solvent and a co-solvent thoroughly in a system designed to implement the process, the mixing being taken-up to produce a coal slurry in a feed preparation zone of the system; feeding the slurry to a reactor by pumping, wherein the reactor maintains a temperature of about 200° C. to 300° C. and a pressure of 1.5 atm. to 5 atm.; allowing a residence time of the coal-solvent slurry in the reactor of about 1 hr to 1.5 hr depending upon predetermined process parameters; extracting a coal-solvent mixture after having settled the slurry in the reactor; feeding the extracted coal to a flasher unit; recovering about 30% of the solvent from the flashing unit, the remainder being a heavy material; feeding the remaining heavy material with some coal extracts including some amount of coal extract left at the bottom part of the flashing unit to an evaporator; extracting about 60% of solvent from the evaporator, the remainder being a residue; discharging the residue from the evaporator to a precipitator having water which acts as an anti-solvent to produce a coal slurry; filtering the slurry in a rotary drum to produce a super clean coal residue and a filtrate; collecting the super clean coal residue containing 0.1 to 10% ash; feeding the filtrate containing water and an organic material mixture into a distillation unit; and separating the water and the organic material in the distillation unit, in order to recover at least 7 to 8% of the remaining solvent.