Modified hydrocycloning for effective elimination of stubborn slimes

Abstract

The present paper deals with the skillful exploitation of the extremely high shear fields inside a hydrocyclone to effectively eliminate a sticky slime from a phosphate ore before beneficiating the coarser fraction using con¬ventional mineral processing techniques. Earlier studies on samples of the same ore at NML and abroad established that it was necessary to pass the ore through a series of three stages of desliming, each consisting of a step of rigorous attrition scrubbing followed by hydrocycloning, for effective elimination of the slime. With the new approach,by innovative modifica¬tions on the standard hydrocyclone design, it was possible to eliminate all the stages of attrition scrubbing while minimising the stages of hydrocycloning. It could be established that the modified technique not only yielded concentrate of grade comparable to that obtained by employ¬ing the earlier more complex flowsheet, it also improved the P205 recovery.