Early in the morning of August 14, Hu Yan, a coal quality tester at the Malan Mine Coal Preparation Plant of Shanxi Coking Coal Xishan Coal Power, came to the intelligent coal quality center, put the first batch of coal samples to be tested that day into the transmission belt, pressed the start switch, and two coal quality testing robots were busy in the closed compartment. The inverted six-axis robotic arms flew up and down, grabbing samples, chip identification, crucible placement, coal sample weighing... Every step is in order, busy but not chaotic. This is the first robot coal quality testing system put into use in the province. It almost covers all manual testing tasks. Since it was officially put into use for half a month, the testing time has been reduced by nearly half, the data accuracy is higher, and the whole process is traceable, which has effectively improved the ash content and clean coal recovery rate of coal preparation. Based on the annual washing of 3.6 million tons of raw coal at the Malan Mine Coal Preparation Plant, it can increase economic benefits by 3.7 million yuan.
Coal quality testing is like a "physical examination" for coal. The quality of the raw coal mined from the ground and whether it can meet specific purposes need to be determined through the data obtained from coal quality testing. The coal quality center is the core department that undertakes this work. The center's daily testing tasks are very heavy. More than ten bottles of coal samples are tested every hour, and it operates 24 hours a day. Each coal sample must go through processes such as drying, weighing, sulfur content and ash content determination. The labor intensity of the laboratory technicians is very high, and the error rate cannot always maintain a high standard of stability. In December 2023, the coal quality testing robot will be stationed in the intelligent coal quality center, and it will work with the (common) exhaust system, panoramic surround system and video monitoring large screen to achieve a three-dimensional, visual and intelligent "physical examination" for coal.
After more than half a year of transformation, correction and adjustment, the coal quality testing robot officially "took office" in early August. Yang Kun, head of the coal quality center, introduced that the system simulates the manual testing process throughout the process, automatically completes all testing steps for coal moisture, ash content, sulfur content, calorific value and other indicators, and the test data is uploaded to the intelligent dispatching center in real time, and the accuracy fully meets the national standards.
Hu Yan, who has been engaged in coal quality testing for 17 years, never thought that she could complete all the work by just pressing a function key: "In the past, when we operated manually, we sent and took coal samples from the muffle furnace at more than 800 degrees Celsius hundreds of times a day, and we would get a big blister on our hands if we were not careful. Now robots take on the main responsibility, and work is fast and safe." Hu Yan admitted that although the work intensity is reduced, there is still a lot of new knowledge to learn, such as how to adjust the robot's operating parameters at any time according to production requirements, how to deal with intelligent operating system failures, etc. In the process of "smart change" of the enterprise, to achieve "transformation and upgrading", the challenges and opportunities faced by Hu Yan and her team have just begun.
Standing outside the fully enclosed robot laboratory, Yang Kun's eyes were bright, "With the improvement of intelligent scheduling, 3D intelligent radar level measurement, unmanned operation and other systems in the mine, the center will also plan to build robot sampling and sample preparation rooms, when coal sampling, sample preparation, sample delivery, and testing can be integrated, relying on the new quality productivity, the intelligence level of the coal preparation plant will leap to a new level!"