Application of Hydrocyclone Separator in Mine Tailings Treatment

Date: 2021-04-16     From: Longding     Author: admin

As a special ultra-gravity centrifugal separation equipment, hydrocyclone separator has been used more and more successfully in the treatment of tailings by virtue of their unique concentration and classification performance. It is specifically manifested in the application of cyclones in tailings damming, tailings pre-concentration, tailings enrichment and recovery, tailings filling and other operations, which are efficient and concise, and the effect is significant.

The cyclone is especially suitable for the classification and sorting of material groups with density and mainly fine-grained. Therefore, it is also widely used in operations such as slurry concentration and clarification, particle classification, desliming and dedication, and liquid impurity removal. It has the characteristics of simple structure, small area, large processing capacity, and small investment.

Application of hydrocyclone separator in mine tailings treatment

1. Tailings Dam

Tailings dams of concentrators often cause problems such as leakage of tailings dams, beach collapse, excessive drainage, and difficulties in dam construction due to the fine particle size and large mud content in the tailings slurry. The application of hydrocyclones effectively solves the above problems.

2. Preconcentration of tailings

The traditional method for thickening and dewatering tailings is to use a thickener. But the thickener occupies a large area, the investment is high, and the underflow concentration is limited (too high concentration is easy to block). The hydrocyclone occupies a small area, has a small investment, and has good rapid concentration characteristics. Generally, the concentration of tailings slurry can be quickly increased to 45%-70%. The hydrocyclone separator and thickener can form a new type of combined thickening process, which uses the rapid thickening effect of the cyclone to separate most of the coarse-grained tailings that are easy to thicken from the tailings in advance, and the cyclone overflows into the thickener concentrate. On the one hand, it greatly reduces the load of the thickener, avoids running and mixing of the thickener, and at the same time can quickly obtain high-concentration sedimentation, improve the tailings processing capacity, and facilitate the transportation of subsequent processes.

3. Tailings recovery operation

A short-cone cyclone is used to concentrate the tailings once, and a yield of 9% can be obtained, which is similar to the sedimentation of the original ore. The cyclone has the characteristics of high centrifugal acceleration, large concentration ratio, large cone angle, large production capacity, high recovery particle size, strong adaptability, simple structure, and low investment. Therefore, the short cone cyclone is an effective first stage of tailings enrichment and recovery, and it is worthy of popularization and application.

4. Tailings filling

The treatment of tailings sand is to remove fine-grained mud and obtain high-concentration sedimentation. The cyclone can quickly achieve the dual purpose of desliming and increasing concentration. It is the best filling method for high-concentration tailing sand after desliming.