Water recovery improvement at GOLEGOHAR line 4 (POLYCOM) tailing thickener using feed system optimization

Document Type : Research paper

Authors

1 heat transfer and fluid mechanics, mechanical engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

2 heat transfer and fluid mechanics, mechanical engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology

3 Chairman of the Board of Amatis Rabin consultant Engineers Co., Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Currently water saving and recycling is necessary for construction and development of mineral processing industry, affected by water resources restriction, the cast of waste accumulation and environmental consequences. Thickener is one of the most important elements at water recovery from waste water. In this study, first operating thickener condition is investigated. Computational fluid dynamics is used to simulate thickener operation with the approach of water saving increasement and the simulation is validated by conventional experiments. Devise’s failure is detected in inability of feedwell at mixing the fluid currents and flocculants. Thickeners capacity increasement due to changes in feed load from design to operating condition is discussed and two short term solution based on flocculant dosage change and long term solution based on feedwell design are presented. 4 new feedwells are designed compatible with operating condition in order to optimize the thickener. The new feedwells by properties of surface dilution (feedwell No.3) and underground dilution and converging output current (feedwell No.4) are introduced as optimized feedwells. In order to deployment any of them respectively, water saving will be more than 1.07 and 1.34 million m^3 per a year. One of the other advantage of these feedwells is overflow discharge water clarification or in other words high solid concentration at underflow discharge.

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References

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Journal of Separation Science and Engineering
Volume 11, Issue 1
July 2019
Pages 89-102

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