SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Feb 17: Tata Steel’s Jharia Division has commissioned a paste-filling pilot plant with a capacity of 10 M3/h to fill up mines’ empty places using a self-levelling flowable paste made from fly ash, cement, and additives.
This is the first of its kind in India, where Tata Steel is exploring this technology for coal mine empty place backfilling.
Digwadih Colliery
D B Sundara Ramam, vice president of raw materials at Tata Steel, inaugurated this ambitious plant at Digwadih Colliery.
Sanjay Rajoria, general manager of Jharia Division, Tata Steel, and Dr Prashant, senior principal scientist, CSIR-CIMFR, were also present.
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Unapproachable coal mines
An official of Jharia Division, Tata Steel, said that filling space in unapproachable coal mines poses a significant challenge for coal miners, leading to safety concerns in and around underground collieries.
Currently, there is no efficient technology available to address this issue.
“Unlike the current sand slurry backfilling method that leads to borehole chocking, segregation, and heaping issues during filling of unapproachable coal mines space, the paste filling technology achieves higher efficiency through its self-levelling and controlled spreading of cemented fly ash paste.
The paste of different compositions and flow properties will be pumped into the empty voids below the railway line at Digwadih Colliery,” said the official
Production and mine fire sites
He added that this trial’s success will pave the way for developing mobile setups to fill voids of more than 1 km in length at the current site and potential applications at production and mine fire sites.
According to officials, this technology offers an environmentally friendly alternative to river sand for mine backfilling. It aims to enhance safety in unapproachable spaces of mines beneath railway lines, highways, and permanent structures above underground collieries.
Developed through a collaboration between Tata Steel, CSIR-Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CSIR-CIFMR), and IIT-Kharagpur, the technology shows promising prospects for future applications.
Narendra Kumar Gupta, chief (Jamadoba Group), Mayank Shekhar, chief (Sijua Group), Rajesh Chintak, chief HRBP (Raw Materials); Dr Veerendra Singh, principal scientist (Research and Development), Tata Steel, and Dr Santosh Kumar Behera, senior scientist, CSIR-CIFMR, Dhanbad were also present on occasion.
