Optimise the water consumption in your process plant by installing Bateman-WesTech Paste-Thickening Systems to produce thickened concentrates and tailings in the form of high-density pastes with little or no free water.
With Bateman-Westech Paste Thickeners you can:
- Reduce the amount of water from the underflow stream
- Maximise the utilistion of scarce water resources
- Minimise the volume of tailings that have to be disposed
- Reduce the power consumption - with efficiencies 40 to 50 % higher than competitive units.
- Speed up the thickening process - compared to conventional systems
- Facilitate the pumping of solids
- Produce cost-effective mine backfill and surface tailings dumps
- Quickly and progressively reclaim the disposal dump for other purposes
- Ensure your tailings disposal is environmentally friendly
Licensing arrangements
- BATEMAN has the right to use the WesTech Inc., USA's paste-thickening systems in BATEMAN projects, both in Africa and globally.
- PasteThick™ & Associates provides sales and marketing services for the
Bateman-Westech Paste-Thickeners.
Technical aspects of paste thickening
Paste thickeners require significantly higher torque than high-rate thickeners to move the thick mud to the discharge. Because the mud-bed depths are high (higher than 10 m in some applications), rake lifts, which are used in high-rate thickeners, are ineffective and cannot be used in the paste-thickener drives and mechanisms.
In paste thickeners therefore, the drives and mechanisms are designed to 'power through' any reasonable mud-bed condition. Experience has shown that K-factors (K = torque/diameter) ranging from approximately 1 460 N/m to 4 380 N/m are required, depending on the application. Deep Bed™ Paste Thickeners may have diameters up to 20 m, which would require a 1,75 million Nm torque for a K factor of 4 380 N/m. The K factor required for any application is determined by the diameter of the thickener and the test data.
Dewatering pickets are provided and extend from the top of the rake arms up into the mud bed. These pickets form channels in the mud that allow liquor to escape as the mechanism rotates. This feature aids in dewatering and allows the mud bed to attain a high solids density for high efficiency separation.
Unlike conventional and high-rate thickeners, underflow control in a paste thickener is rheology and not density based. Similarly the pipeline design for transfer of the underflow to the tailings deposition site is primarily based on a certain rheology rather than the conventional "minimum velocity to prevent settling" criteria. To accomplish rheology control of the underflow as well as maximizing density, a recirculation loop is employed in the underflow system.
