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 that was piled with coke inside iron furnaces. It has a high proportion of carbon, which accelerates combustion, and a low proportion of impurities, including ash and moisture, which retards combustion. Pittsburgh coal also has a low proportion of sulfur, which is critical to making high-quality iron. In addition, the Pittsburgh seam was located close to Pittsburgh, then the center of the growing American iron and steel industry. Coke had to be transported by water or rail to iron furnaces, and the Pittsburgh seam's proximity to iron furnaces gave the bed another competitive advantage over more distant coal seams that