Proposal on schemes for cleaning the coal for chemical use under the strategic goals of achieving carbon peaking and neutrality

In order to help reach the strategic goals of achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, given the change of the trend in both coal consumption and energy structure in China, following a systematic analysis of the necessity of developing the modern chemical industry, the following chemical coal preparation and processing schemes are proposed according to the requirements on the quality of the coal: for the low-ash coal and medium and high-ash coal, priorities should be given to the use of screening and dry cleaning processes, respectively; for the difficult-to-clean low and high-ash coal, the wet washing process can be used according to the washability of the coal when the use of dry cleaning process proves to be difficult to yield the expected result; in production of the coal for chemical use, the points that need to be focused on are size, ash, strictly controlled moisture of and absence of fine slime in product; and for the nonmetallurgical coal producer, efforts should be made to explore the feasibility of producing the coal for chemical use. The suggestions made can help further extend the supply channels of such coal, leverage the advantages of coal resource, improve carbon fixing property of chemical products, and reduce the reliance on imported oil and gas. Moreover, the adoption of the proposed schemes can also help the coal industry to increase the overall raw coal treatment rate and promote clean and high-efficiency utilization of coal.