The thickener is a tailing or concentrates dewatering equipment commonly used in the mining industry, which is mainly used to separate the water to achieve the purpose of solid-liquid separation. The separated water can be reused, and the tailings can be directly piled up or backfilled in the pit. Thickeners are widely used in the treatment of sludge, wastewater, and waste residues in metallurgy, chemical, coal, non-metallic mineral processing, environmental protection, and other industries.
The non-compliance of environmental protection standards in the discharge of sand washing wastewater has always been a stumbling block hindering the development of sand washing plants. To meet environmental protection standards, sedimentation tanks are generally used for the treatment of sand washing wastewater. However, the construction of a sedimentation tank requires a lot of costs, and there must be enough space for stacking wet mud. On the other hand, the sedimented mud cannot reach a certain degree of dryness, and it is also very difficult to handle. Therefore, this approach is not recommended.
The main feature of the thickener in mining is to add a certain amount of flocculant to the slurry to be concentrated. The solid particles suspended in the slurry in the thickening tank settle under the action of gravity and flocculant, so that the ore particles in the slurry form flocs, and the upper part becomes clarified water, so that the solid and liquid can be separated. The sludge deposited on the bottom of the thickening tank is continuously scraped and collected by a rake scraper to the center of the bottom of the pool for discharge, while the clarified water overflows from the upper edge of the thickening tank.
The following can improve its efficiency:
- Add flocculant to increase the particle size of the settled solid particles, thereby accelerating the settling speed.
- The installation of inclined plates shortens the settlement distance of ore particles and increases the settlement area.
- Play the role of flocculating, filtering, compressing, and increasing the processing capacity of the dense phase layer of mud deposits.
- Equipped with automatic control facilities.
