Abstract:
The iron ore produced in Brazil is basically extracted from open pit deposits, whose main lithologies are hematites, itabirites, in addition to several variations. Low-grade itabirite ores are normally submitted to two processes responsible for the generation of tailings from the beneficiation process. Flotation is the concentration process whose sandy tailings are basically composed of silica, while desliming is responsible for the removal of a large part of the secondary deleterious minerals such as Alumina, Gibbsite, Kaolinite, etc., making up the ultrafine tailings. The mixture of sandy and ultrafine waste makes up the total process waste.
For some current operations, the disposal of the total tailings is carried out in tailings dams, however, for new plants, in addition to some suitable plants and in favor of the integrity of people and the environment, the way of stacking was changed from hydraulic launching in dams for vertical stacking in piles known as PDR (Tail Disposal Pile) or even PDER (Sterile and Waste Disposal Pile). In order to dispose of it in piles, the material is drained in filtering installations that use conventional disc filters and in some cases also the filter press.
The work in question aims to fill some gaps related to the filtering of tailings, presenting some concepts and learnings with this type of operation during the last years. Process aspects related to sizing, operation, filters and their subsystems will be highlighted, such as vessel separators, cleaning circuits and process tests, in addition to pointing out some important points related to good maintenance and operation practices to ensure satisfactory operation of the tailings filtration using conventional disc filter.
