Dewatering to higher densities - an industry review

Schoenbrunn, Fred

doi:10.36487/acg_rep/1104_02_schoenbrunn

Cited by 13 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…The origins and evolution of 'paste' thickener technology has been well documented (Schoenbrunn 2011;Schoenbrunn & Bach 2015) and over time two thickener designs have become recognised as true paste thickeners; these being the deep cone thickener (DCT) and the high-density thickener (HDT) designs. The DCT type has dominated the P&TT market, and more than 200 are currently installed in various backfill and surface tailings applications.…”

Section: Defining Pandtt Schemes According To the Tailings Dewatered Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Revaluing paste and thickened tailings for large tonnage applications

Vietti¹

2021

Paste 2021: 24th International Conference on Paste, Thickened and Filtered Tailings

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A decade ago, paste and thickened tailings (P&TT) disposal was regarded as a potential technology for eliminating so-called wet tailings dams. Despite numerous very successful examples of both surface and backfill applications, by 2015, confidence in the technology had waned after the technical difficulties encountered at two high-profile, large tonnage copper tailings projects in South America. The recent spate of deadly tailings dam disasters has refocused public and private sector attention on conventional tailings disposal. The knee-jerk reaction from the mining industry has been to ignore P&TT and focus on dry stacking as the solution to the problem, which itself is still a relatively immature technology for large tonnages. This paper attempts to explain the apparent lack of recognition that P&TT as a legitimate and safe tailings disposal method has received. A chronological review of P&TT technology implementation and possible reasons for its loss of favour, particularly in large tonnage applications, is provided.

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Section: Defining Pandtt Schemes According To the Tailings Dewatered Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Revaluing paste and thickened tailings for large tonnage applications

Vietti¹

2021

Paste 2021: 24th International Conference on Paste, Thickened and Filtered Tailings

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“…Table 4 shows examples of yield stress values for different tailing suspensions, including alumina and lead-zinc tailings that have a yield stress ranging from 22 to 265 Pa , Sun et al, 2013. The study of rheology in mine tailings management has brought many changes to the development of thickener technology (Schoenbrunn, 2011) and pumping systems (Paterson, 2012). Furthermore,…”

Section: Rheological Concepts and Their Application To Mine Tailings mentioning

confidence: 99%

Synergising water and energy requirements to improve sustainability performance in mine tailings management

Adiansyah

John

Vink

et al. 2016

Journal of Cleaner Production

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Mining is a water and energy intensive industry, and reducing water and energy consumption are two important issues in the quest for more sustainable industrial production. The aim of this paper is to assess the correlation between water and energy requirements in various tailings disposal strategies (on a per cent solids-based analysis). Two main methods are used: rheology testing and a system modelling approach. A coal mine site in Australia was chosen as a case study to apply five tailings disposal options. These five options are differentiated by the percentage of solids in the tailings ranging from 30% to 70%. The rheology analysis indicated that the coal mine tailings with 65-70% solids are not pumpable and these two options are beyond the scope of this study. The results of the analyses show that the optimal scheme process in terms of water saving, water management, and energy consumption involved tailings with 50% mass solids. The implementation of this option resulted in both lower water transport (15,532 ML/y) and energy consumption (34.7 TJ/y). This option also reduced the overall flows of water to the Tailings Storage Facility by 30%.

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“…via recycling material through the thickener (Doucet and Paradis, 2010;Schoenbrunn, 2011)), for the purposes of the discussion to follow, the symbol T res is used to denote the total time that the feed is subjected to the shear (comprised 1 of preshear time T pre and time in the settling zone T res − T pre ).…”

Section: Preshearing Suspensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of aggregate densification upon thickening of Kynchian suspensions

Grassia¹,

Zhang

Martin

et al. 2014

Chemical Engineering Science

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A model is presented for the thickening of a raked suspension. The model is based on Kynch theory (Kynch, 1952), i.e. it describes systems with solids fractions sufficiently low that the solids have not gelled into a weight-bearing network. However the model incorporates a modification to describe how raking the suspension causes flocs or aggregates within it to densify. This floc densification opens up channels between the flocs through which liquid escapes, making the suspension easier to dewater. The densification theory presented here predicts profiles of varying solids fraction vs height in the settling zone in a thickener, information which is not normally available when designing thickeners via the conventional Kynch theory. Performance enhancements for thickeners due to raking can be readily determined, either in terms of increased underflow solids fraction or increased solids flux. As underflow solids fraction is increased, thickeners operated at a specified aggregate densification rate (or equivalently at a fixed settling zone height) tend to approach a 'fully densified' suspension state (defined as a point at which the extent of aggregate densification ceases to change with time), with improved thickening performance

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Dewatering to higher densities - an industry review

Cited by 13 publications

References 1 publication

Revaluing paste and thickened tailings for large tonnage applications

Revaluing paste and thickened tailings for large tonnage applications

Synergising water and energy requirements to improve sustainability performance in mine tailings management

Effects of aggregate densification upon thickening of Kynchian suspensions

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