Application and Maintenance of the Thickener in Mineral Processing Plant

Thickener belongs to dehydration equipment, commonly used for the thickening of ore concentrate and the dewatering of the tailings before filtration, as well as the thickening and purification of a liquid containing solid particles in the chemical industry, building materials, and water source &sewage treatment industry.

In the processing of dewatering tailings, thickening is mainly used to make use of the recycling water and to store the tailings in the tailings dam.Otherwise, to improve the operating process such as the thicker slurry is needed when it is too thin, so thickener is one of the necessary dewatering machines among the process of miming solutions.

For now, mechanical discharge thickener, also named rake-type thickener, is most widely used which can be operated continuously, and there are three types concluding center -transmission thickener, peripheral roller transmission thickener and multilayer thickener,and the peripheral roller transmission one can also be divided into two types such as rack peripheral transmission and roller peripheral transmission.  

Though thickener is easy to manage when daily operating, it is quite cardiac to the whole mining plant, and if anything wrong happens to the thickener, the whole plant has to stop operating. There are several points suggested by the tailings dry stacking team of the Mining Machinery Co., LTD that needed to pay attention to when operating the thickener.

Firstly, several attention points when starting and parking the thickener

The motor should be started before the ore fed in order to guarantee the normal work of the thickener, and the ore should be fed after the thickener has already run up. When special circumstances happens, thickener must be stopped then the ore

Should stop the feed, then quickly lift the rake or increase the amount of the discharge of ore, to avoid the scraper not being sated on the slurry pulp, thus to guarantee the continuity and uniformity of the feed and discharge (the discharge of the thickening )of the ore.

Secondly, some attention aspects when daily operating the thickener

At the same time, to meet the demand of the production, the feed concentration and the concentration of the thickening, as well as the quality of the overflow water, should be checked at daily works. In actual operation, the concentration of the thickening can be changed by controlling the pace of the feed ore, when adjusting the discharge concentration, attention must be paid to prevent the increase of the solid in the overflow process to ensure the overflow water can meet the requirements.

Thickener means a lot to the mining plant, thus we should have an overwhelming understanding of the aspects that affect the production capacity of the thickener.the capacity of the thickener means thickening area to processing tons of day and night, there are several factors that affect the productivity.

Firstly, the density of the feed ore and the discharge ore; secondly, the composition of the particle size; thirdly, the viscosity of the foam; fourthly, the existence of the pharmacy and electrolyte; fifthly, the temperature of the slurry; sixthly, the value of the concentration material.

Except for those factors, the most important factor is the mud which is the most difficult material to slime. There are two sources of the mud: one kind is formed in the process of the ore shattering, called row mud, the other is produced in the grinding process that is being ground too much, called producing mud. Due to the fine particle size of the ore mud, so increase the mineral surface area and the moisture content which depending on wetting and capillary phenomenon, for the micro colloidal particle of 0.1-0.001mm, the molecular forces and electrostatic repulsion between same charged particles caused no precipitation due to the tendency of their own settlement.Therefore, the fine mud is the most difficult material to the slime of the precipitation process.In ore dressing plant, one way is to add electrolyte or to add a colloidal surfactant( usually by adding water glass and soda) thus to adjust the solid and liquid ratio of the slurry pulp or to heat the slurry pulp to accelerate the subsidence particle dispersed pulp.

With the influence of the national policy in recent years, tailings dry stacking is becoming more and more popular, thus increasing the demand for the thickener, therefore through the introduction above to know more about the thickener is necessary.