ABSTRACT
Within the mineral industry there is a need to eliminate the dependency on tailings dams for water recovery and solids disposal. Increasingly popular methods of achieving alternative solids disposal is to use tailings for the production of mine backfill or surface stacking. Both of these techniques require a very high solids content in the final plant tails and this can be achieved in one solid-liquid separation unit operation with the use of the Deep Cone™ thickener. Paste thickeners have been used by the Alumina industry for over twenty years, and more recently Baker Process have combined their expert knowledge of thickener technology with Alcan’s operational experience to introduce this concept to the mineral industry. Deep Cone™ thickeners are now in operation, producing pastes of over 70% solids, suitable for both mine backfill and surface stacking. This paper will review the theory, technology and operational performance of the Deep Cone™ thickener.
