Coal breaker the United States in the state of Pennsylvania (where, between 1800 and the mid-20th century, many of the world's known anthracite reserves were located). At least one source claims that, in 1873, coal breaking plants were found only at anthracite mines in Pennsylvania. The first function of a coal breaker is to break coal into pieces and sort these pieces into categories of nearly uniform size, a process known as breaking. The second function of a coal breaker is to remove impurities (such as slate or rock), and then grade the coal on the basis of the percent of impurities
Coal breaker floor and slid down a gently inclined "picker table" where breaker boys removed obvious impurities such as rocks and large pieces of slate and threw them down chutes to the culm pile. The breakers also removed obviously clean lumps of coal and sent them down a separate "clean coal" chute for crushing. Lumps intermixed with impurities would go down a third chute for crushing and further cleaning. On the second level of a typical breaker, coal would be roughly sorted. The fuel would move over sorting bars, with the various sizes of coal going down different chutes. Each type of