The products obtained by wet beneficiation often contain a large amount of moisture, so it is not easy to transport and can not meet the requirements of smelting and processing. In severely cold areas, concentrates containing water are frozen, making transportation difficult. Therefore, the concentrate must be dehydrated before being sent to smelting or used for other purposes. The process of removing water from mineral processing products is called dehydration. In a beneficiation plant lacking water resources, the water in the concentrate or tailings needs to be used. At this time, the dehydration process not only meets the needs of concentrate smelting and processing, but also obtains a part of the water for reuse in the beneficiation plant.
There are several methods for dewatering mineral processing products: natural dehydration, concentration, filtration and drying. The first method is used for dehydration of coarse-grained materials, and the latter three methods are used for dehydration of slime. In the latter three methods, concentration and filtration are usually indispensable methods in the beneficiation plant. Drying is rarely used in the beneficiation plant, usually in the smelter.
When processing fine ore particles, such as the dewatering of flotation concentrates, more complicated equipment is required. The dewatering process can usually be divided into three steps: 1. Precipitation and concentration: The equipment is used to settle the slurry Initial concentration to make the water content reach 30-50%; 2. Filtration: Under certain pressure, the water and solids are separated with the help of the filter medium, and a product with a water content of about 20% can be obtained; 3. Drying: drying the material with a dryer Dry to reduce the water content to less than 5%, but this process consumes a lot of energy and will lose concentrate, so it is generally not used in mineral processing plants.
When dealing with coarse-grained materials containing a large amount of water, most of the water can be removed by gravity natural dehydration. If centrifugal force can be used, the effect is better. The commonly used equipment is thickener, dehydration centrifuge, etc. These equipment are most widely used in gravity concentrators.
