How Gravity Thickening Works?

The gravity thickener is a solid-liquid separation device based on gravity sedimentation, usually made of concrete, wood, or metal welded plates as a structural material to build a cylindrical shallow groove with a cone bottom. The slurry with a solids content of 10%-20% can be concentrated by gravity sedimentation into an underflow slurry with a solids content of 45%-55%.

How does gravity thickening work?

The slurry enters the thickener, and the deflector at the outlet end of the feeding shaft guides the slurry to the surroundings, so that the slurry spreads to the surroundings. Under the action of the flocculant, a mud layer is formed and settled to the bottom of the thickener. The liquid rises through the sedimentation layer. The sedimentation layer acts as a filter to prevent fine particles from rising. The slurry produces movement in the sedimentation layer, causing the particles to contact the flocculant and continue to produce flocculation. The rake pushes the dense slurry to the center discharge barrel, and then is discharged by the slurry pump.

The high-efficiency thickener feeds the slurry into the central buffer cylinder, forming a circulation in the central buffer cylinder, which plays a role in reducing the impact of the circulation on the mud layer. At the same time, the pulp and flocculant are fully mixed, and the pulp is forced to spread in the horizontal direction to avoid impacting the sedimentation layer. The flocculated large particles settle down, and the liquid rises through the sedimentation layer. The sedimentation layer has a filtering effect, so that the fine particles cannot rise with the liquid, so as to achieve the purpose of solid-liquid separation.

The high-efficiency thickener can completely separate the solid and liquid and completely discharge the metal ions in the slurry, so the effect is very good. The solid-liquid separation interface of ordinary thickeners is unclear and easy to run muddy, so good results cannot be achieved.