Irkutsk National Research Technical University (Irkutsk, Russia)

Rylov K. A., Engineer
Burdonov A. E., Associate Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, Associate Professor, slimbul@inbox.ru

This paper presents the results of thickening studies for iron ore processing products using an in-house laboratory dynamic thickening plant, simulating an industrial high-performance thickener. Flocculants of different brands were used in the study, namely: Praestol, Granflock, Magnafloc, and Nalco. The main goal of the work was to establish the standard thickener sizes required for thickening tailings with specified characteristics and to select effective flocculants for product thickening. The study identified the parameters for thickening iron ore processing tailings. Experiments were carried out using nominal, reduced, and increased density feeds. The dependence of the solids content in the overflow on the flocculant consumption at various thickener loads has been established. The comprehensive work performed has demonstrated that processing tailings with a capacity of 1720 t/h solids may be thickened in two 50 m high-performance thickeners. The expected density of the thickened product in this case will be approx. 62 % solids by weight. Lower density values may be achieved with an automatic control system for the condensed product pumps, which could capture part of the liquid phase of the feed when discharging the product. In this case, the thickener may operate with a low bed level to be maintained constantly at a single value. FlowVision software was used to perform CFD modeling of hydrodynamic flows in the thickener body, which confirmed the results of the full-scale experiments. The flocculant selection test conducted identified Granflock 1435 and Praestol 2540 as the most effective flocculants for tailings thickening.

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