Coal breaker Coal breaker A coal breaker is a coal processing plant which breaks coal into various useful sizes. Coal breakers also remove impurities from the coal (typically slate) and deposit them into a culm dump. The coal breaker is a forerunner of the modern coal preparation plant. Generally speaking, a coal tipple was typically used at a bituminous coal mine, where removing impurities was important but sorting by size was only a secondary, minor concern. Coal breakers were always used (with or without a tipple) at anthracite mines. While tipples were used around the world, coal breakers were used primarily in
Coal breaker rolled down a chute and then through an inclined cylindrical screen. The screen had a mesh which was fine toward the front and became progressively less so toward the end. Larger chunks of coal, falling inside the cylinder as it rotated, broke up and eventually passed through the screen. Impurities, which were heavier, tended to exit the breaker at the end of the screen. The sorted coal would then be collected in bins below the screen, and transported to market. A fellow Pennsylvanian, Gideon Bast, licensed the technology from Battin, and erected the first commercial coal breaker in Schuylkill County,