FLOTATION TECHNOLOGY
Lakes Ltd ( KLL ) Beyondie project in Western Australia . The cells have recently arrived onsite and commissioning is expected in summer 2021 .
Maelgwyn ’ s Beyondie contract covers the supply of the conditioning vessels and Imhoflot Hybrid IMF H40 flotation cells , including all piping and instrumentation . The Beyondie project will initially produce 90,000 t / y of SOP but Kalium Lakes will twin the process plant to incrementally phase the project to ramp up to 180,000 t / y of SOP production .
Tim Sambrook , Maelgwyn Business Development Manager told IM : “ Maelgwyn clients find that plant operations favour Imhoflot technology because the Imhoflot high-hydraulic shear generates ultrafine bubbles which carry the tallow amine collector in the brine flotation to fine particles and low-active surface area particles . This increases sylvite recovery and we often see our cells used on the fine scavenger circuit to increase -100 μm fraction potash recovery . Test work showed the Imhoflot cells increased sylvite recovery from 72 % to 91 % over conventional flotation , as reported by IM in July 2020 .”
Imhoflot pneumatic flotation generates a fine froth which drains very effectively , this reduces the entrained fine halite and water insolubles which can bring product grades below 60 % K2O ( 95 % KCl ). “ The biggest feedback we get from site is that the Imhoflot cells are much more stable than those they replaced and due to the removal of all moving parts ( except for the standard centrifugal pump ) the maintenance is significantly reduced in both downtime and cost .”
Maelgywn has optimised its CP-Cell for coarse particle flotation introducing a collection vessel and launder design optimised to stabilise the froth and recover coarse particles using a long launder lip-length
Maelgwyn says it is looking to develop its relationships with NPO Passat and K-UTEC who are both world leaders in potash processing plant engineering .
The trend of modularisation in flotation and in mineral processing generally is being embraced by MMS with a new Imhoflot Mobile Modular Plant ( MMP ). Mine operations teams want to have rapidly deployable plant modules to access increasingly
remote mine sites and get them into production faster . The concept is to build upon the small footprint per tonne USP of the Maelgwyn Imhoflot cells and put these into a ISO container frame that can be loaded and deployed anywhere in the world . “ By building these as standard modules , Maelgwyn will further reduce our already highly competitive capex further and bring our flotation technology to an even wider sector of the industry . These plants will be optimised for ease of maintenance and operation .” Maelgwyn is working with a leading OEM to bring these to market in 2021 and says the design has already had significant interest from the coal , chrome and tailings retreatment sectors .
Another Maelgwyn innovation is its Hybrid Cell - a new cell design for plant stability even where there is ore variability . Using reactor flotation allows each part of the flotation process to be optimised , namely : conditioning and pulp preparation , bubble attachment , froth enrichment , mineral recovery vessel and tailings removal .
“ The legacy flotation technology of tank cells aims to reduce the processing cost per tonne by ever increasing unit size ; however , is fundamentally limited by the physics involved with conventional tank flotation . What distinguishes the Maelgwyn Advanced Imhoflot Reactor range is that we have always optimised both the bubble attachment physics and the mineral recovery vessel parameters to the ore being processed . Our current research is to extend this optimisation further ; Maelgwyn will be bringing
MATERIAL FLOW CONTROL
CHUTE SYSTEMS & SOLUTIONS
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Tel : + 27 ( 0 ) 11 827-9372 email : info @ webachutes . com
www . webachutes . com
NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2020 | International Mining 29