Innovation in dewatering process of flotation tailings by study of particle interaction in colloidal environment

SummaryMany mining operations produce tailings that dewater very slowly under self-weight consolidation. On way of reducing the water content of such tailings is by coagulation/flocculation processes (C/F processes). This paper describes a study using aluminium chloride and pre-hydrated aluminium salts as aluminium chlorohydrate – ACH (F1.2A, F1AM, FD15, FDM17H, F1S) and polyaluminium chloride – PACl (PAX-18) in dewatering of flotation tailing slurries, resulting from coal flotation in the coal preparation at the Paskov Mine (Czech Republic). Experiments were conducted at different temperature and mixing conditions to simulate full-scale conditions. The results point to a potentially technique for reducing the water content of tailings streams, thus increasing storage space, improving economic and environmental aspects.