The Application of Thickener in Mining Industry

The thickener is a continuous working thickening and clarification equipment, mainly used in the liquid-solid separation process beneficiation tailings, leachate concentration, and wastewater treatment. In the beneficiation plant, the thickener is widely used in the thickening of pulp and tailings, so that the backwater can be recycled and the concentrate is dewatered before filtering. Thickeners can be widely used in the treatment of sludge, wastewater, and waste residues in metallurgy, mining, coal, chemical, building materials, environmental protection, and other industries.

The thickener is important equipment for dehydration, drug removal, and washing in the process of beneficiation and chlorination in gold mines. The chlorination workshop needs multiple thickeners to complete the drug removal and washing operations. Underflow pulp concentration and pulp processing capacity are two important production indicators of the thickener. As the core equipment in the slurry concentration process, the thickener is an important ore processing and buffering facility. Because the underflow concentration and underflow flow of the thickener is directly related to the production indicators of the flotation workshop, ball mill workshop, and other related workshops closely connected with the thickener, the thickener has a very important position and function in the production process of the concentrator.

The application of thickener in the mining industry

1. Dewatering operation of concentrates of red ore minerals such as hematite

For the red ore that is beneficiated by the flotation process, the use of a high-efficiency thickener can obtain a higher underflow concentration and increase the dehydration rate of the concentrate.

2. Dehydration of iron ore concentrate

The use of inclined plate type high-efficiency thickener has a better dewatering effect. The use of the inclined plate thickener changes the sedimentation path of mineral particles, reduces the use of flocculants, and greatly improves the dehydration efficiency of the high-efficiency thickener.

3. Secondary concentration of iron ore tailings

4.Dewatering operation of recovered minerals in composite iron ore

Flocculant is one of the ways to improve the efficiency of thickeners. The high-efficiency thickener adds flocculants to form large flocs in the pulp entering the thickener, which greatly improves the working efficiency of ordinary thickeners. Concentrators generally use anionic and non-ionic flocculants. Due to the different surface electrical properties of the ore, the appropriate flocculant models are also different, and the choice of which model flocculant needs to be verified by experiments. Before concentrating, choose the most suitable flocculant according to the properties of the concentrated pulp.

According to research, it is difficult to form large floccules when the flocculant is added to the thicker pulp. However, it is easy to form large flocs with a very fast settling rate in the thin slurry, and it will increase the load of the thickener’s rising water flow. Therefore, the proper pulp concentration is required before start thickening processing.