Continous Dewatering System
Goals:
Separate any kind of suspended solid particles from liquid
Regardless of dilution, less than 2% solid up to 80% solid
Applications:
Separate any kind of suspended
solid particles from liquid
Mineral processing to separate product from water
Mineral processing
to separate water
from tailing water
State of the art in mineral processing
step 1
Use thickener to separate water from slurry with 20% solid content. Gain up to 50% solid and recycle 20% of water
step 2
Transport the 50% slurry to tailing dam to give time and separate water from solids (0 to 40 microns)
step 3
Second recycling stage for the water in the tailing dam
Problems & disadvantages of the current systems
Tailing dams are harmful to the environment
risks of land slidingIt takes months to recycle the water whicch makes sycling time too high
The thickeners are extremely expensive and so is their maintanance
Slurry pumps and pipes are vulnerable to erosion. In fact internal parts of pumps need to be replaced every 20 days
ETS Continous Dewatering System Concept
Each module is 6-12 meter
Casing plus two rotary screws
Each screw is a stacking of ceramic porose disks
Disks are hollow, shafts are hollow and disks are connected to the hollow shafts through holes
1
Slurry enters through no.13
2
Due to the high and low pressure waves, the water is get squeezed through ceramic to the hollow shafts
3
Water is collected through the shafts
4
The slurry moves forward with the help of rotation of screw
Intermittent or sinusoidal waves because of non-symmetric geometry of the disks
Line 9 shows the pressure on the water side inside the hollow shaft
L shows the distance along the module
Sinusoidal increase in pressure difference between slurry and water sides
Sinusoidal wave on slurry side is needed to separate the cake from the surface of the ceramic disks
The cake would stick and harden on the disks and the module will stall
