Abstract
Mineral liberation is a crucial stage in many mineral processing diagrams and it is accomplished by breaking larger chunks of ore into smaller particles to be separated. Mineral grains in the ore have a variety of qualities such as grain size, shape, and Young's modulus. These mineral properties combined with other features like intergranular bond strength can affect how the ore breaks. Furthermore, it is found that considerable fracture will improve mineral exposure liberation during comminution impacting the mineral grinding ability and separation recovery. A wide range of comminution methods for mineral liberation of coal are used in literature such as: rod milling, ball milling, electrical disintegration, roll-crusher, and jaw crusher. Consequently, researchers exploring mineral liberation of coal over the years have provided a range of outcomes from different techniques. This paper reviews the existing literature in this field and offers a complete overview of the impact comminution processes have on coal mineral liberation. The goal is to analyse the wide range of descriptors such as energy consumption, process efficiency and end product to compare and contrast the different methods of mineral liberation of coal. Knowing the most effective method can have many positive implications on the coal liberation process allowing it to become cheaper, more energy efficient and more reliable. With that said, this paper aims to review relevant studies about different comminution methods on the separation of coal components. Unlike classic comparison papers only comparing a couple methods, this paper aims to review all relevant methods of coal comminution to give a large overview and provide the big picture on the benefits and drawbacks of each method compared to one another.