“Black Gold” of Belgium: History and modernity (on the example of one exhibit from the technical collection of the Mining Museum)

Abstract

Throughout the history of the Mining Museum of the Mining University, its model collection has been replenished with the most modern models and layouts from different countries. In the technical collection of the Mining Museum, among models of mining equipment of the 18th–20th centuries, there is a model of a sorting processing plant for coal from the main industrial region of Belgium — Liege Seren. The model of the factory was purchased in the Freiberg Mining Academy (Germany) in 1875 in the workshop of K. Schumann. The model is made in the scale of 1:10. The mechanisms are made of metal; the pedestal, wall panels and supports are made from timber. Skips supply fine coal up into a box, from where it enters the drum screen of the Rexroth design. The screen is a cylinder, the surface of which has holes, increasing in size from the beginning to the end of the drum. After screening, coal is fed to the wet jigging and to the special jigging machines of the Rexroth system. Different varieties of coal undergo further processing. In connection with the depletion of local coal deposits by the beginning of the 20th century, production in Belgium began to work on imported coal. Coal mining was completely stopped in Belgium in the 1980s. Nevertheless, the model of the sorting coal-preparation plant reminds us of the golden age of the coal industry in Belgium. This model is still a teaching aid for students of the Mining University. This model is of interest also for museum workers, as well as for specialists in the field of beneficiation, as an example of the development of technology in one of the most famous industrial regions of Europe.