SEPARATION TECHNOLOGIES
producing gravity concentration equipment and has recently introduced the Sepro Falcon Frontier Bowl which it says represents the most significant improvement in gravity gold recovery in over 20 years. The concept behind the parabolic riffle profile was to create a bowl with riffles on both sides of the dynamic slurry face.“ We wanted a smooth path for slurry flow up the bowl wall. The bottom riffles begin with a relative angle of 30 degrees and progressively decrease in angle until the top riffles are vertical.”
The bottom riffles are exposed to the slurry flow, creating an eddy current zone of high turbulence. The top riffles are not directly exposed to the slurry flow, creating a nonturbulent zone of particle separation and recovery. In between is a transition zone where the angle of the bowl wall is equal to the angle of the dynamic slurry face. This design Sepro says dramatically improves overall gold recovery across a range of ore types, gold grades, and particle sizes.
Hydrocyclones – Weir ' s CVD game changer in iron ore
Weir’ s CAVEX ® 2( CVD) hydrocyclone is a gamechanger in challenging desliming applications according to Deb Switzer- Global Process Manager Mill Circuit. The depletion of high grade iron ore reserves mean that low grade iron ores represent a sizeable portion of global reserves.
The Weir CVD hydrocyclone reduces flow turbulence and promotes an increased volumetric capacity of approximately 30 %
To maximise the recovery of iron value from the ore, innovative solutions are needed to extract additional iron content from slimes disposed to the tailings.
Iron ore slimes – fine-grained waste byproducts generated during the iron ore beneficiation process, typically consisting of iron, alumina and silica with variations in sizes and densities – present some significant processing challenges.
Because of their extremely fine particle size and complex mineralogy, as well as their high surface area, it’ s difficult to effectively separate the iron-bearing minerals from the gangue using standard beneficiation techniques, leading to low recovery rates and poor concentrate quality. In order to develop and design an effective solution, it’ s vital that the mineralogy of the deposit in analysed and well understood.
Take, for example, a recent project Weir undertook at Tata Steel’ s Khonbond mine in India, where the iron ore is different in mineralogy from other iron ores due to the limonitic material content. This type of ore is highly friable in nature and produces ultrafine slimes( ≤ 30 μm) with good iron values when treated through wet processing. Put simply, this type of slime material can’ t be beneficiated through conventional process.
Tata Steel was exploring new technologies to increase the iron yield to a threshold value of 8 %. This would, in turn, increase the percentage of iron in the concentrate, while also keeping the alumina and silicate content within the acceptable range for blast furnace feed and, consequently, reduce the loss of minerals to the tailings.
The incumbent solution included a cluster of three plus one standby CAVEX ® 650CVX hydrocyclones in the wet processing unit, delivering maximum iron yield of 5.2 %. After considering the mineralogical composition of the ore and the metallurgical performance requirements of Tata Steel, the Weir team conducted a simulation study and recommended installing smaller cyclones( 400CVX) to achieve a finer cut size.
However, to be able to process the required
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