What is Anthracite?
Anthracite is a kind of coal that is compact and has a submetallic luster. Its carbon content is the highest and has the fewest impurities in all types of coal. Anthracite is preferred over sand due to its reduction of the service flow rate. It also allows a faster backwash rate and a reduced pressure drop. Overall, it’s seen as one of the best single/dual media filtrations used in different designs of water filtration systems
Operating Characteristics and Performance
Important characteristics to take into consideration when there are large volumes of liquid to be filtered are the higher operating flow rates and backwashing rates. Backwashing rates of 55 to 60 can be achieved at 20℃ with grain sizes of 1.4 to 2.5 mm. The hardness of anthracite means that the physical erosion is minimized and thus the lifetime of the filter is longer.
Is Anthracite Better Than Granular Activated Carbon?
Anthracite is better than activated carbon by allowing higher service flow rate. Granular activated carbon (GAC) lasts longer and removes Trihalomethanes (THMs) and Haloacetic acids (HAAs) from drinking water efficiently.
What is the Difference Between Anthracite and Granular Activated Carbon?
Granulated activated carbon (GAC) filters impurities by trapping them in the larger pores unlike anthracite, where backwashing won’t remove them alone when they’re in the pores of the filtration media.
How do Anthracite Water Filtration Methods Work With Salt Water?
Because the impurities in salt water are very tiny, filter media such as anthracite work well with coagulant substances when filtering water. Coagulants are chemicals that help in creating clumps of impurities. When larger aggregates are made, impurities are easier to remove.
Abundant Resource For Investments
Industrialized countries like the United States, China and Russia have large amounts of coal available to them. Estimates show that the US holds enough mined coal to fuel current resources for the next 400 years. The current global reserve for coal is approximated at about 1 trillion tons. It is a resource that has great potential for the developing world, improving the livelihoods of the world’s poorest societies. However, it is a fossil fuel and is not imperishable, but it is predicted that it won’t run out for at least 300 years.
The Cheapest Fossil Fuel
Opencast or surface mining is a technique where coal is mined from overlying rock near the land’s surface. Normally, the coal is 100 meters in depth. Nonetheless, miners rarely have to go too far underground and machinery can do the most of the work and extract the coal fairly easily. It is then stored in cool dry conditions, lasting a considerable amount of time.
Environment Damage
Coal combustion generates harmful waste like carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphuric acids and arsenic. High volumes of CO² combine with particles in the air reflecting the sun’s rays.
| Advantages |
| High service flows and long filter runs. |
| Intentness to gradation, hardness and purity assures reliable performance. |
| Unique density allows compounding with other media. |
| There are less particles that are oversized or undersized resulting in an exceptionally uniform bed. |
| Disadvantages |
| Not a renewable resource. |
| Contains a reasonable amount of carbon dioxide per British Thermal Unit. |
| Can create great amounts of radiation. |
