โ Scribed by S. Hartland
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The subjects of the laboratory researches include the use of permeability and suction potential methods in a study of the retention of water by line coal, the angle of contact between coal and air bubbles, and the attachment of bubbles to coal particles in froth flotation. An interesting discussion of the last paper showed some differences of opinion about the relative importance in practice of the two ways -collision and gas precipitation -in which bubbles become attached to particles. A better understanding of this question should lead to improvements in 'the design of flotation plant.
Three papers on coal preparation plant deal with jig and with dense medium methods, and cover the aspects of testing, prediction of performance and representation of results.
Other ,papers on practical aspects of the subject deal with the drying of coal, problems of sedimentation and filtration, and experience of interface-active chemicals. These last have interesting possibilities as flocculants, in spite of their high cost.
Most of the papers are devoted to the improvement of processes that are already well established in' the coal industry rather than to new developments. The book will certainly be of interest to readers familiar with the coal industry. Though most of the processes and methods are familiar in other connexions, chemical engineers in general will no doubt find interest in their application in an industry which works on a large scale with processes that must be cheap. In general, the field of coal preparation offers to the chemical engineer great scope but perhaps rather less example.
M. J. G. WILSON Automatic Measurement of Quality in Process Plants. Proobeedings of a Conference sponsored by the Society of Instrument Technology, held at Swansea, Sept. 1957. Butterworths, London, 1958. xi + 320 pp., 50s.
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES