Research Institute of Comprehensive Exploitation of Mineral Resources of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russia):

Shadrunova I. V., Head of Department, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, Professor, shadrunova_@mail.ru

Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University (Magnitogorsk, Russia):
Gorlova O. E., Associate Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, gorlova_o_e@mail.ru

UralKhimServis Ltd. (Ekaterinburg, Russia):
Galyamov V. Sh., Process Engineer, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, victorgalyamov@yandex.ru

BASF (Moscow, Russia):
Frolov V. S., Sales and Technical Representative

Existing and newly designed mining and processing plants use various full or partial water recycling options in order to reduce their capital and operating costs for the storage of concentration tailings and recycled water supply. These include thickening of tailings, storage of tailings in the form of pastes or dry tailings with dumping of thickened tailings into depleted pits and underground workings. The process of concentration tailings management in tailings dumps may be optimized through the use of Rheomax ETD rheology modifiers. These are high-molecular polymers specially designed to improve the concentration tailings storage process. Laboratory research have been conducted for the processing of concentration tailings of two flotation plants with the use of Rheomax ETD rheology modifiers manufactured by BASF with the purpose of studying the prospects of this tailings management technology for their storage in tailing dumps. The effectiveness of the Rheomax ETD series polymers is evaluated by the spreading angle of the thick slurry, the water yield percentage and the quality of the overflow at various flow rates of the polymers. It has been established that, with an increase in the polymer flow rate, a thick slurry of a strong homogeneous structure is formed that is practically not subject to spreading and has high water yield. The technology of slurry processing with high-molecular Rheomax ETD polymers is applicable to flotation concentration tailings and ensures their effective thickening for subsequent dumping into tailing dams. Based on the results of pilot industrial tests, it has also been shown that the use of Rheomax ETD polymers for treating mine water in underground mines with high contents of slurry particles may be promising for clarification purposes.
The study was conducted with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Agreement No. 14.604.21.0128 (unique project identifier RFMEFI60414X0128).

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