High voltage pulse-enabled coal desulfurization and deashing – Part 1: Selective breakdown of mineral matter

•High voltage pulse (HVP) selective breakdown of mineral matter in coal samples.•High-quality coal particles remaining intact after HVP treatment.•Screening method to reject pyritic sulfur and ash minerals into the undersize stream.•A new HVP technology with potential for coal desulfurization and deashing for green development. Coal desulfurization and deashing are the common challenges that the coal industry worldwide is facing. A new technique is presented in this paper using high voltage pulse (HVP) selective breakdown of mineral matter that exhibits higher electric conductivity/permittivity than coal, followed by size-based separation to reject the pyritic sulfur-bearing and ash-bearing mineral matter. Part1 of this study demonstrates HVP selective breakdown of mineral matter, and Part 2 reports the optimization of the HVP treatment to minimize coal loss during the coal desulfurization and deashing process. Two coal samples, one bituminous and one anthracite, were collected from two coal mines in China and used to assess the viability of this new HVP technique for the coal industry. In the paired-particle tests with one low-density (