Lavrinenko A.A., Golberg G.Yu. Thickening and Dewatering of Coal Flotation Tailings

DOI: 10.18503/1995-2732-2023-21-3-27-41

Abstract

This research was carried out to determine the most promising ways of improving thickening and dewatering of coal flotation tailings. It has been shown that the significance of this topic is associated with a trend towards increasing the volume of coal beneficiation by flotation, and the content of fine particles of rock minerals, including clay minerals, which, in turn, leads to an increase in flotation tailings and the difficulty of their dewatering. On the other hand, the requirements for environmental protection and rational use of natural resources make it feasible to operate coal preparation plants with a closed water-sludge cycle, which provides clarified clean water for reuse at the coal preparation plant, and a solid phase in the form of a dewatered cake for subsequent transportation and storage in a dry state. This paper provides information on the composition and physical and chemical properties of coal flotation tailings, influencing the performance of thickening and dewatering processes. The authors described a thickening process of suspensions of flotation tailings in thickeners: radial, cylindrical-conical, including paste, and lamella thickeners. The authors showed efficiency of radial thickeners with a fluidized bed and a sludge densifier for producing the overflow with minimum solids content and highly concentrated underflow. The article contains information on dewatering of coal flotation tailings: by filtration on belt and chamber press filters, vacuum filters, and solid bowl centrifuges. The authors mentioned the advantages and disadvantages of the said dewatering technologies and showed that the promising methods of intensifying the processes of thickening and dewatering of flotation tailings are a combined application of coagulants and flocculants, an optimized flow rate of flocculants and the mode of their mixing with a suspension, including fractional dosing, and recycling of some overflow during thickening.

Keywords

coal flotation tailings, thickening; dewatering; thickeners; press filters; flocculation

For citation

Lavrinenko A.A., Golberg G.Yu. Thickening and Dewatering of Coal Flotation Tailings. Vestnik Magnitogorskogo Gosudarstvennogo Tekhnicheskogo Universiteta im. G.I. Nosova [Vestnik of Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University]. 2023, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 27-41. https://doi.org/10.18503/1995-2732-2023-21-3-27-41

Anatoly A. Lavrinenko – DrSc (Eng.), Chief Researcher, Head of the Laboratory, Melnikov Institute of Comprehensive Exploitation of Mineral Resources, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Grigory Yu. Golberg – DrSc (Eng.), Lead Researcher, Melnikov Institute of Comprehensive Exploitation of Mineral Resources, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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