Wet Rice Coal

 
kjb197
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Post by kjb197 » Thu. Oct. 15, 2009 7:12 pm

My rice comes soaked. I drilled holes in the bottom of my buckets but never noticed any water draining out. After 1 season and 3 days of burning I have no issues of rust or water running down the grate. The coal does stick together but seems to dry out quick in the hopper. So far this year I've been burning what I had left over from last year and it is dry and very dusty. I fill a bucket and give it a quick shot with the hose. Other wise the dust gets everywhere and I hate black boogers.

 
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CoalBin
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Post by CoalBin » Mon. Nov. 02, 2009 8:14 pm

Hey Guys - Just an update.

I used an pneumatic ARO peening/scaling hammer & knocked the rusty looking stuff off - it sure looked like rust. I came to the conclusion that whatever the stuff is - its probabally not rust (maybe not?). The deposits wound up cracking off in dime size chunks - underneath was pretty clean metal. I think its either some kind of deposit - or reaction to the uppper hopper's metal composition. I'm wondering if the upper hopper is made of some other form of magnetic stainless or monel. Once I got most of the scale off (which I'm still wondering what it actually is) I painted the upper hopper with Eastwood rust encapsulator.
Last edited by CoalBin on Mon. Nov. 02, 2009 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

 
crazysteamer
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Post by crazysteamer » Mon. Nov. 02, 2009 9:19 pm

One thing that I have used to protect sheet metal against moisture / rust in environments like a coal hopper with wet coal is Devcon Flexane paint on rubber coating.

The surface has to be very clean (blast or wire brush it to bare metal).

Once it's on, it isn't coming off and is totally impervious to water (assuming you paint it on correctly).

Other manufacturers have similar products that will be just as good - I am just familiar with this line.

Mix it up, paint it on quick and throw away the brush because once it sets up, it's going nowhere.


 
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AdkCoal
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Post by AdkCoal » Mon. Nov. 02, 2009 10:25 pm

All the bagged coal that I have ever used was wet.

I just pour the stuff into the hopper of my KAA-2 and have never had a problem.

As part of my spring maintenance, I wire brush the rust and paint the inside of the hopper.

 
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coal berner
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Post by coal berner » Tue. Nov. 03, 2009 12:09 am

Lets all think about this for a minute all coal is wet it comes out of the ground so it is wet when it comes out then it goes to a coal breaker to be cleaned & Processed sized it gets washed again wet then it sits inside a coal bin in the breaker
wet when they load a truck it gets washed again wet once the bins get full then they take the coal outside and put it on the stock pile again outside so every time it rains it gets wet again so coal is always guess what wet

 
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CoalBin
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Post by CoalBin » Tue. Nov. 03, 2009 7:31 am

Now we truely know

Wet Rice Coal - is in fact .... wet :o

Any ideas on what's going on in my hopper - don't think its rust. I bet its moisture or sulfur related though.


 
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wlape3
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Post by wlape3 » Tue. Nov. 03, 2009 12:31 pm

CoalBin wrote:Now we truely know

Wet Rice Coal - is in fact .... wet :o

Any ideas on what's going on in my hopper - don't think its rust. I bet its moisture or sulfur related though.
I'm betting it's rust. Something similar is going on in my hopper. What got it started was extremely wet coal. I've gotten a better handle on it now but unfortunately you just can't get all of the water out of the coal just by draining it.

The sulfur oxides from the burning coal probably react with the water to form sulfuric acid.

 
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coal berner
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Post by coal berner » Tue. Nov. 03, 2009 12:57 pm

CoalBin wrote:Now we truely know

Wet Rice Coal - is in fact .... wet :o

Any ideas on what's going on in my hopper - don't think its rust. I bet its moisture or sulfur related though.
iron & sulfur in the coal the coal itself will have less then 15% moisture content in it

 
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CoalBin
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Post by CoalBin » Tue. Nov. 03, 2009 1:24 pm

I've had this stuff accumulating in my hopper - take a look @ my previous photos. When I opened the hopper at the start of the season, thats what I saw - the stuff really looks like rust - was even flaking off like rust - but I could knock most of it off - tried burning a bit with my torch thinking it was sulfur- does not burn or melt. Underneath seems to be relatively clean un pitted metal. If it were rust - my hopper would be long gone. I've had quite a bit of moisture condensing in the hopper the past two seasons - so maybe the moisture is evaporating & building up a coating.

 
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wlape3
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Post by wlape3 » Tue. Nov. 03, 2009 2:38 pm

Looks just like the scale I have in my hopper. My hopper is all carbon steel so I'm still thinking it's rust. Try dissolving it in some acid like HCL (muriatic acid). You could also check to see if it is magnetic.

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