Hydrocyclones Upgrade Tailings Treatment Process

The hydrocyclone is multifunctional mining equipment do concentrating, dewatering and classifying tasks. In recent years, the application of cyclones has been expanding to the tailings treatment and has achieved good results in tailings dam construction, tailings preconcentration, tailings enrichment recovery, and tailings filling.
Hydrocyclones for sale

Hydrocyclones tailings process

Background

The tailings dam of this mining plant is located in a valley surrounded by water and mountain. Because the raw ore contains a lot of red slate, it expands when it meets water, causing serious sliming.
These fine particles of tailings are extremely difficult to settle, and are suspended in the reservoir, bring serious problems to the external drainage water quality and tailings dam safety.
Since it was put into production, the tailings dam has suffered from multiple collapses, excessive drainage, polluting downstream reservoirs, and silting rivers. It has been punished by the environmental protection department for several years, seriously affecting the normal production of the concentrator.

Result

After the research study, this mining plant applied hydrocyclones to the tailings dam.
The original ore concentration is 25.49%, and the tailings with a particle size of -0.074mm accounted for 65% are classified and dehydrated. The content of fine particles in the sediment is greatly reduced, the sediment concentration is 71.46%, and the grit size is -0.074mm, which accounts for only 18.9%. The content of fine particles in the overflow is high, the overflow concentration is 18.42%, and the overflow particles -0.074mm account for 94.63%.

This high-concentration sedimentation coarse-grained product is piled in front of the dam, and a low-concentration fine-grain overflow is sent into the reservoir, so that the tailings dam forms a coarse-grained dam shell with good water permeability. The dam body is immersed in the line to prevent seepage damage on the dam slope, and the stability of the dam body can be enhanced because the fine particle material is far away from the dam.
After several years of operation, not only the safe and normal operation of the tailings dam is guaranteed, but also the external drainage quality is always up to standard. The ore dressing plant has been rated as an advanced unit of water treatment by the environmental protection department for several years.

Cyclone for preconcentration

The tailings preconcentration operation often uses a thickener to concentrate the tailings slurry with a concentration of 15% to 20% by 35% to 40%.
Compared with the concentrator, the hydrocyclone has a smaller space, a lower cost invests at the same output capacity, and a faster concentration speed. Under normal conditions, the cyclone preconcentration operation can increase the concentration of 10% to 40% of tailings to 45% to 70%, and the sediment yield is high.

From the results of existing experimental research, for metal mine tailings, the concentration of grit in the cyclone can reach more than 60%, the yield of grit is 40% to 70%, and the concentration of integrated tailings can reach 45% to 50%. The cyclone is used in the tailings concentration and dewatering operation, which can not only play the role of the existing tailings concentrating equipment, but also transform or expand the tailings technology.

In addition, the cyclone can also synthesize a new concentration process with the concentrating unit, and use the cyclone to quickly concentrate, separating most of the easily condensed coarse-grained tailings from the tailings, and the cyclone overflows into the thickener. concentrate. In this way, on the one hand, the load of the thickener is greatly reduced, the thickener is prevented from running, and the high concentration of grit is quickly obtained, the tailings processing capacity is improved, and the subsequent process is facilitated.

Hydro cyclone improve tailings enrichment and recovery rate

The average grades of copper and gold in copper tailings are: 0.07%, 0.08g/t, the content is low, and the size of the inlay is fine, but due to the large amount of treatment, the coarse-grained copper, gold and fine grains Monomer gold is very valuable for recycling.
The semi-industrial test of copper and gold in tailings is recovered by the hydro cyclone. The short tail cone is used to enrich the total tailings, and the yield can be 9%, the copper grade is 0.18%-0.25%, and the gold grade is 0.08-0.16g/t. The nature is similar to the grit of the original ore, and the enrichment ratio is 2.8 times.
According to the conventional grinding and floating process, the sedimentation can be further sorted to obtain concentrate with copper grade of 18% and gold grade of 6.88g/t. The comprehensive recovery rate of copper and gold (relative to the original ore) is increased by 2.04% and 1.85% respectively.

Cyclone assist tailings filling

The tailings filling is to dewater the tailings into tailings sand with a concentration of about 70%, and then re-inject into the goaf mine through special treatment. This is the filling method currently used in many mines.

The requirement for tailings sand is to remove the fine-grained mud to obtain a high concentration of grit. The equipments that can be selected include thickeners, desiccant buckets, jaw classifiers, spiral classifiers and cyclones, among which the cyclone is The utilization rate of other equipment is very high, and the overall efficiency is also better. Not only the equipment is simple, the configuration is convenient, the operation flexibility is large, and the dual purpose of deliming and increasing the concentration can be quickly achieved.

In a large-scale gold mine tailings selection plant, the concentration of tailings is 20% to 25%, and the particle size is -0.074mm, which is greater than 65%. By using a cyclone for first-stage grading and concentration operation, the concentration of tailings sand is 65% to 75%. The tailings product with a particle size of -0.074mm and less than 20% is directly injected into the goaf through technical treatment. After long-term observation by various monitoring methods, the filling efficiency is good, and there is no phenomenon such as displacement or collapse.

In terms of tailings treatment, Xinhai Mining installed a dry-discharging process in 2009, combining hydrocyclone with a variety of concentrating equipment such as concentrators and dewatering screens. The final dewatering content can be as low as 15%, which is more suitable for The application of the above four kinds of tailings treatment.