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Flotation, selective flocculation, magnets Leaching/acid washing/electroseparation Density/shape (jigs riffles spirals)
Chemical treatments
However
Water has an extraordinarily high latent heat of
vaporization
2 Jun-13 Performance & Filtration Minerals
Jun-13
Concept A separation process based on density difference Calculations rely on Stokes Law
Jun-13
Jun-13
Batch Filters Plate and frame filter Horizontal pressure filter Candle/leaf filters (beer) Tube press Continuous Filters Drum/disc filter Belt press
Jun-13
Rotary Dryers (direct or sometime indirect) Curtain/belt/band/moving tray dryers Fluid Bed Dryers Spray Dryers and of course ovens!
Jun-13
Rotary Driers
Pros:
Versatile
Direct fired
Cons:
High Capex and footprint May need a scrubber
Indirect fired
Jun-13
Belt Dryers
Pros
Suited to delicate materials
Cons
Need to distribute carefully on belt No agitation so material drying uneven Poor efficiency for self-insulating materials
Jun-13
Pros:
Fair efficiency Fair footprint Fair capex
Cons:
Not suited to all minerals Material must be granular not dusty May require backmixing of dry
Note: Its common to add cool air at the end, using up all the embedded heat for evaporation theres no added value in having a hot product! See
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Jun-13
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Jun-13
Spray Dryers
Slurry atomised into hot gas environment, then recovered with cyclone/baghouse
Pros:
Slurry to powder in
just one step Product has good flow and can have good density
Cons:
High energy requirement
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Jun-13
Flash Dryers
Basics: cake/lump dropped into fast moving hot gas current, then recovered with cyclone/baghouse May be with or without mechanical agitation
Eg. Cell mill or Scott AST
Pros:
Versatile Wide range of product forms and moisture levels Fair capex Fair efficiency
Cons:
Low density products
Jun-13 Performance & Filtration Minerals
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Jun-13
Selection Process
Methods vary in how water is heated Choice depends on varying importance of:
Starting and ending moisture levels Form and density of feed and product Capital cost Energy efficiency Footprint Mineral physical strength and heat sensitivity Mineral abrasivity
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Jun-13
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Dryer Performance
Q: how do you know if your dryer is working? A: Product is dry! Q: I mean efficiently? A: Benchmarking!
Benchmarking
Dryers come in so many shapes and sizes, how do we compare? Seek the common features:
Removing water (want this high) Using energy (want this low)
Hence a good measure is the ratio! kWh/kg water removed is a good benchmark
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Jun-13
Confounding factors
Some minerals bind the water so
temps well over 200C may be required to obtain dryness Moisture content is deceptive
To dry from a 10% solids slurry means removing 9mt of water per mt of dry product Variations multiply if your crude drops from 55% solids to 45% solids, drying requirement increases by 50%!
Some Efficiency Benchmarks Maytag tumble dryer: 1,720Btu/lb Competitor 2,240Btu/lb source Typical spray drier 1,500 Btu/lb Common range for older equipment is 1,600-2,200 Btu/lb water
This number is a good tool to check for issues and benchmark for comparison with other machines and facilities!
Jun-13 Performance & Filtration Minerals
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water It takes a certain amount of energy to make water turn to steam - everything else is waste!!
Thus the perfect dryer would not waste energy on any other task
Heating the mineral, heating the gases, heating the equipment
Yet the mass balance tells us these are the only possible places for our energy to go. This means dryer efficiency can be easily monitored using the temperature of the output streams!
Try to minimize these flows and their temperatures (they are energy flows or money flows) The enthalpy (contained energy) of these streams is the product of their mass, temperature
The ideal dryer would discharge cold minerals, cold gases and even cold (liquid) water
Hence the after-cooling on fluid bed dryers Hence the heat exchangers common on dryers
Heat exchangers may look like they are heating feed but another way to see it is they are cooling the product to avoid energy escaping the system Some heat exchangers actually re-condense the steam thus the output is not only colder but lower in energy this is the trick used in condensing boilers.
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Jun-13
Unavoidable heat loss Alas we cannot have all the outputs of a dryer at room temp! A dryer is a bit like a heat exchanger: We need a temperature difference to act as a driving force
Smaller temp differences mean slower evaporation Slower evaporation means more residence time is required More residence time means a bigger dryer bigger = more efficient But bigger means more expensive
But we can learn from heat exchanger best practice:
this may mean we need a hot exhaust and/or hot baghouses This hot exhaust is money down the drain
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Jun-13
Consider Recirculation
If your system uses large volumes of gases and the output is not saturated, consider a recirculating setup
Bleed off air at controlled humidity Lowers volumes of hot gas released
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Jun-13
Common problems
Dust
Overdrying or uneven drying
Instability
Swing between too dry and too wet Examine process control Integral and derivative control needs to consider reaction time of system Process reaction time (lag) needs to be reduced Stabilize inputs
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Jun-13
conveyance systems May require product backmix to ensure suitable flow behavior through dryer Wet or damp minerals susceptible to biological attack storage should be minimized
Some dryers produce lumpy product, some customers require no lumps, so even if product is fine, may still need fresh pulverization
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Jun-13
Some minerals, such as bentonites or nano-sized pccs cannot be re-dispersed to original PSD
What to do?
Dynamic vs static drying Freeze drying or supercritical drying are the ultimate
Ensure you are drying from clean water
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Jun-13
Drying: Summary
Advice:
Monitor specific energy use Per tonne product Per tonne water removed Do an energy balance Experiment! But only if you measure the effects! Talk to others with similar equipment Get their data Look at their outlet temperatures, gas flow rates ideally compare all energy flows Consider heat recovery Heat exchangers Condensers Finally: get help! Talk to us: Jarrod Hart (energy balances), Kevin Jones (operational excellence), Brian Burns (automation) Talk to other experts such as Pascal Bizarro (thermal processes) Or even better: be an expert for others. Let people know your skills via your Galaxy profile
Common Issues
Poor contact of heat with moisture Lost heat due to poor operation Instability
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Jun-13