Hydrocyclone is the core classification and thickening equipment in tailings recovery systems. It sorts, classifies and thickens tailings slurry by centrifugal force.
- Pre-thickening of tailings: Concentrate tailings slurry in advance, reduce solid content in overflow water and increase underflow concentration, easing the capacity burden of tailings pond.
- Coarse tailings recovery: Recover usable coarse particles from tailings for construction sand and backfill aggregate, improving resource utilization rate.
- Slime removal: Separate ultra-fine slime from tailings to avoid adverse impacts on sand quality and facilitate qualified coarse sand recovery.
- Pre-treatment for mine backfill: High-concentration underflow tailings can be directly fed into underground backfill systems to meet concentration requirements of backfill materials.
- Overflow water recycling: Clear overflow water returns to the production circuit for reuse, saving process water and reducing wastewater discharge.
- Tailings volume reduction: Cut down the total amount of tailings entering the tailings pond, lowering safety risks and operation & maintenance costs of tailings pond.
Advantages: Simple structure, no moving parts, large throughput, small footprint, continuous operation, suitable for closed-circuit recovery of mine tailings slurry.
Application Case Study: Tailings Recovery Using Hydrocyclones
Case 1:
Fankou Lead-Zinc Mine adopts backfill mining. Concentrator tailings are used as backfill material. 18 HHZ hydrocyclones in parallel classify tailings slurry. Coarse underflow is used for high-strength backfill; fine overflow after thickening is for ordinary goaf backfill.
- Problem: Direct whole tailings backfill leads to high cement consumption and low strength;
- Process: Tailings → Hydrocyclone classification → Coarse underflow (backfill aggregate) + Fine overflow;
- Result: Cement consumption reduced, backfill strength improved, tailings pond inflow cut down, service life extended.
Case 2:
At Dexing Copper Mine tailings recovery plant, original Φ350 hydrocyclones with involute inlet had unstable classification performance. They were upgraded to Φ350 hydrocyclones with spiral inlet for pre-classification of tailings.
- Process: Tailings slurry fed into hydrocyclone cluster; coarse underflow recovered as construction sand aggregate; fine overflow sent to thickening system;
- Result: Higher classification efficiency and coarse sand recovery rate. Recovered sand can be sold externally, realizing tailings recycling and reducing tailings pond load.
Case 3:
Overseas gold mine, tailings capacity 250 t/h. Original process suffered low underflow density, poor classification and fast liner wear. Polyurethane hydrocyclone cluster adopted, with optimized apex and vortex finder, VFD pump for stable feed pressure.
- Result: Classification efficiency +28%, underflow solids from 55% to 68%, water recovery +15%, liner service life from 4 months to 14 months, maintenance downtime -40%.
