In the current climate, there is a real need to bridge the gap between theory and the real world mining considerations, and develop viable, cost-effective, high performance thickeners. With a greater need to extract profits from both difficult-to-process ores and lower grade orebodies, coupled with the necessity to produce 'greener', less water intensive technologies, suppliers need to take current thickener designs to the next level and into the 21st century._x000D_
The complexity of 'getting it right' within a thickener's feedwell, the 'nerve centre' of the thickener, is no small task. Delivering dilution water and mixing this water with incoming feed slurry, addition of flocculant, maximising flocculant-slurry interaction to build aggregate size, minimising unabsorbed flocculant percentage, volume average of solids volume fraction, momentum dissipation ratio, dilution recycle ratio, volume average shear, maximum shear rate at exit, aggregate size on exit, uniform discharge profile and more - all of these need to occur in the right order and in the right proportions within the feedwell._x000D_
This paper discusses the genesis and evolution of a new feedwell design, the first major innovation in the thickening industry in over 15 years._x000D_
FORMAL CITATION:Triglavcanin, R A, 2008. Designing feedwells for the 21st century, in Proceedings MetPlant 2008, pp 559-573 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).