Development And Experimental Research Of A Continuous Centrifugal Separator With A Swirling Fluidized Bed

Centrifugal separation is one of the effective methods for the separation of fine and micro minerals,and it has significant technical advantages such as rapid processing,environmentnal friendliness,low operation cost,low separation size and high enrichment ratio.The existing horizontal centrifuge of China could achieve a high enrichment ratio for the minerals,but,with a low throughout and operating periodicly;although the vertical centrifuge of other countres could operate continuously and it also could chieve a high enrichment ratio for the minerals,it can not be used to treat the minerals which contain a high mass weight of heavy-minerals.Therefore,the research and development of new technologies and equipment of centrifugal separation,to improve the existing centrifugal separation technology,has important research significance and application value.In this investigation,an experimental fluidized hydrocyclone continuous centrifuge was developed based on the hydrocyclone and fluidized bed centrifugal separation principle,and the relevant theoretical research was carried out.The FHC100 centrifuge was used to investigate the its classification and separation perfprmance and to choice the main factors affecting the performance.The FHC100 mainly consists of tangent feed pipe,cyclone column,concentrating rings,collection cylinder,water inlet pipe,enrichment cone,concentrate pipe and tailings pipe.The results show that the performance of FHC100 is closely related to the key operating factors,e.g.,feed pressure,water inlet pressure,concentrating rings quantity,mineral characteristics(size,density,grade,form and size composition)and equipment structure parameters.Its main technical features include the following points.First,the fluidized bed layer and separation depth is thick,so that it have large throughout and excellent buffer ability,the concentrating rings would not be blocked in a short period of time,so that the FHC100 can separate the minerals which contain a high mass weight of heavy-minerals;second,the emissions of heavy-minerals and fluidized bed layer separation is uncorrelated,so that the FHC100 can work continuouly;third,this design makes the emissions of heavy-minerals can at fixed period or continues,thus the cycle of emissions and water content of concentrate is controllable;fourth,select the appropriate operating conditions,the FHC100 can classification,separation or desliming;fifth,the FHC100 has advanced and innovative working principle,simple structure,low fabricating cost and low maintenance cost.It doesn't have any moving parts,can installed in the ore pulp pipe of mineral processing plant through simple modification.Through four continuous classification,the FHC100 produced a product at 50.84%stilling productivity and 77.58%classification efficiency with-0.074 mm size from a whole size range quartz ore(-0.074 mm size mass weight as 57.14%);through four continuous separation for the ilmenite ore(10.70%Fe)from Dali,it produced a product assaying 20.28%Fe with an iron recovery of 60.07%.It con be concluded that the FHC100 provides a new technical idea for the continuously separation of large amounts of minerals which contain a high mass weight of heavy-minerals,and it has a singnificant development prospect.However,the new technical has some deficiencies at present such as low mass weight and metal recovery.So,it should be futher considered to investigate.