Features of hydrocycloning technology when changing the sludge processing method

Abstract

A method has been developed for processing stockpiled (flotation) sludge for the purpose to extract precious metals. One of the main stages is the process of three-phase hydrocycloning of calcined sludge (cinders) using primary and secondary hydrocyclones at each stage. The ground cinder is pulped and fed to a series of hydrocyclones with taper angles of 10, 7 and 5 degrees. These hydrocyclones desludge the ground cinders and produce sands for centrifugal separation, yielding a concentrate consisting of a mixture of intermetallic compounds (Pd, Pt, Ag, Cu, Sn, Pb) and intermetallic compounds (Fe, Cr, and Ni). Magnetic separation allows for the separation of these intermetallic compounds. The result of using three-phase hydrocycloning was a 10-fold reduction in the volume of ground cinder, which, in turn, made it possible to reduce the scale of equipment in centrifugal separation operations for sand by 10 times.