Coal homogenization

Coal homogenization refers to the process of mixing coal to reduce the variance of the product supplied. This homogenization process is performed during the coal stockpiling operation. Although the terms blending and homogenization are often used interchangeably, there are differences, as the definitions show. The most notable difference is that blending refers to stacking coal from different sources together on one stockpile.^[1] The reclaimed heap would then typically have a weighted average output quality of the input sources. In contrast, homogenization focuses on reducing the variance of only one source. A blending operation will cause some homogenization.