Effective coal slurry water solid–liquid separation is indispensable for the recycling and sustainable development of coal resources. The interaction between bubble and coal particles plays a critical role in the process of dewatering for clean coal. In this study, we firstly conducted a comprehensive investigation of the impact of froth on the interactions between coal particles by rheological measurement and particle aggregation behavior. Furthermore, the macroscopic dewatering performance of coal slurry in the presence of froth and its microscopic cake structure were investigated using the filtration test and X-ray microtomography (CT). It was found that the interaction between coal particles in the presence of froth was enhanced as a result of the dynamic shear value, combined with the large floc size and compact structure, which led to a higher cake moisture and higher filtration velocity. The CT results indicated that the enhanced interaction of particles in the presence of froth also led to a dense microstructure of the filter cake. The porosity of the filter cake decreased to 2.05% when the aeration time increased from 0 s to 90 s, the throat radius in the filter cake was reduced to 1.32 μm, and the number of throat passages was reduced to one third. Multiple blind pores and low coordination numbers led to a poor connectivity of the pore network and high moisture content.

The two largest coal producers, China and the United States, operate markedly different accident-reporting regimes, yet comparable cross-country evidence is scarce. We harmonized 47,986 U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) Part 50 records for 2011–2025, documenting reportable injuries, occupational illnesses and accidents, with Chinese official statistics and a published 532-report structured dataset. Because the archives report different objects, and China reports fatalities per million tonnes while U.S. reporting is event-based, we placed both on a common production-normalized basis, tested correlates of fatal outcomes with chi-square statistics and Cramér’s V and benchmarked four classifiers under explicit class-imbalance controls with SHAP attribution and leakage-controlled narrative text. China’s rate fell from 0.564 (2011) to 0.045 (2025) while the U.S. rate stayed flat (0.020 to 0.017), narrowing the gap from 28-fold to under 3-fold. U.S. fatalities concentrated in powered haulage (31.2%) and machinery (25.9%); Chinese deaths were dominated by gas explosions and outbursts (20.8 and 9.6 per event). Scrubbed narratives raised cross-validated ROC–AUC from 0.892 to 0.966 and held-out PR–AUC from 0.049 to 0.252; a sensitivity analysis confirmed the composition findings under the Chinese dataset’s severity bias. The framework supports screening-oriented risk triage of newly reported events, not automated adjudication.