Debswana Installs BATEMAN Conveying and Dust-Control Systems 

Bateman Engineered Technologies has supplied Debswana’s Orapa and Jwaneng diamond mines in Botswana with pneumatic-conveying and dust-control systems. This is the first time such fully integrated and automated systems have been supplied to diamond processing facilities.

Pneumatic conveying

BATEMAN Pneumo-Dryers, patented pneumatic-conveying systems which simultaneously transport and dry particulate materials, were supplied as well as bulk pneumatic-conveying systems. The latter convey tailings feeds to the audit X-ray machines or safety screens and then to the tailings dumps.

The Pneumo-Dryers convey kimberlite from the dense-media separation plants to the recovery buildings. With a lift of 90m and a horizontal distance of 8 m, the Pneumo-dryers are bout 100 m long.

The kimberlite is enclosed in the conveying pipe over this entire length. The kimberlite, containing up to 20% moisture, is batch-fed via an overpressure airlock into a BATEMAN- designed feeding tee and then introduced into the conveying line. During transport it is dried at a temperature anywhere between 50and 400 °C and discharged dry into a bin. The conveying / drying air is provided by a Roots-type positive displacement blower driving air heated by an inline electrical heater.

Simple to operate and maintain, the BATEMAN Pneumo-Drier has proven itself in over sixteen installations world-wide, ranging from coal, platinum matte, kimberlite, marine silica and salt to rushed rubber.

The dust control systems

The working environment in the central diamond recovery buildings of both mines is very clean, with a background dust level below 2 mg/m³.This has been achieved by the installation of dust-handling systems to remove air-borne dust generated during the handling of kimberlite, which decomposes readily to produce fine sand dust.

These centralised systems collect the air from more than 70 dust-generation points, throughout the 5 floors of the 80m high buildings, and pass it into wet scrubbers. The resulting slurries are then dumped from the scrubbers to settling dams.

At the Orapa mine BATEMAN also supplied and installed seven additional dynamic wet scrubbers on the primary, secondary and re-crushing areas, the primary bunker, the splitter bin, the transfer tower and the interface plant.

All the equipment supplied was proprietary BATEMAN equipment designed and manufactured in RSA.

More information may be obtained from Paul van de Vyver, General Manager, Pneumatics and Environmental, on +27-11-201-2300 or email engtech@batemanengineering.com.

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