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
Pittsburgh coal seam matter (gases expelled when coal is burned), leaving carbon and ash from the coal fused together in the form of coke. They made coke in turf-covered "mounds," in which coal burned slowly and without oxygen to drive off impurities. The adoption of beehive coke ovens in the 1830s spurred the use of Pittsburgh-seam coal in iron furnaces, and these ovens made better-quality coke than mounds. Pittsburgh-seam coal, especially the highest-quality coal found in the Connellsville district, was the best coal in America for making coke. When converted into coke, it was sufficiently strong to withstand the weight of iron ore