Progress of research on key technologies essential for developing intelligent coal preparation plant

Through the efforts made over the recent years, the development of intelligent coal preparation plant has made substantial progress in the field of intelligent control of key coal cleaning process links, comprehensive intelligent management and decision-making, and standardization of data, among others. To summarize the achievement so far obtained in development of intelligent coal preparation plant, the paper presents a detailed introduction to the status quo of the related research work and the latest research progress from the following aspects: overall development, intelligent gravity separation process, intelligent plant management and decision-making, and standard data system of coal preparation operations. The thoughts on the challenges that can be encountered in the development of intelligent coal preparation are shared for consideration. Analysis shows that viewed as a whole, the subsequent development of intelligent plant has to embark on a long road with heavy burdens; for the realization of intelligent coal cleaning system, it is required to carry out strategic research on the possibility to turn all process links and systems into intelligent ones in line with their specific characteristics; for two or more washing systems, the set-up of a comprehensive perception system needs to be considered, so as to realize collection storage and standardization of coal washing data for facilitating online analysis and evaluation of coal separation effect; with respect to intelligent plant management, there exist insufficiencies in the aspects of overall planning, coal property data management, workshop and shift work management modules, interaction of data at all levels, and intelligent elements, and for the majority of the plants nowadays, the capability of realizing decision-making based on comprehensive data analysis is unavailable; plant data management work has achieved initial success; the intelligent system is unstable in operation due to inaccuracy of online monitoring instruments; and heavy burden of maintenance work in the later stage, enormous gaps in talent and inadequate planning of projects are common problems restricting the development of intelligent plant. The specific work targeting the development of advanced intelligent plant is proposed. Along with the initial success in developing intelligent plant, lots of knotty problems may pop up accordingly. So it is necessitated to conduct study on new programs with unremitting efforts.