Prediction of pressure filtration characteristics of CaCO3 suspensions ground in a vertical stirred media mill

• Effect of stirred media grinding parameters on filtration of CaCO3 was studied.
• Statistical design of experiments and regression modeling were utilized.
• Grinding speed and time were shown to have the strongest influence on filtration.
• Inclusion of combined and quadratic terms improved the model significantly.
• The simplest linear models underestimated both the lowest and the highest αav.

Cake filtration is an important unit operation in the processing of minerals and pigments. The filtration characteristics are strongly dependent on the upstream processing of the ore, such as grinding parameters. This study aims at empirical investigation of the influence of key stirred media milling variables on the pressure filtration characteristics of calcium carbonate. Various regression models are presented and evaluated with respect to their statistical significance. The results show that all the grinding variables have a statistically significant influence on the average specific cake resistance, but the predictability of the models is not very good unless combined and polynomial terms are considered.