Abstract:
this work evaluated the performance of lab filtration tests (leaf tests) with different mixtures of iron ore tailings (flotation tailings - sandy, and desliming tailing - slime) with and without the use of a filter aid.
Firstly, filtering unit rate results, moisture and percentage of solids in the filtrate were evaluated with sandy tailing (reference), 90/10 mixture (90% sandy and 10% slime) and 80/20 mixture (80% sandy and 20% slime), without the use and with the use of a dosage of 50g/t of a filter aid.
Then, to deepen the results of the 90/10 and 80/20 mixtures, leaf tests were carried out with mixtures 80/20 (80% sandy and 20% slime) and 90/10 (90% sandy and 10% slime), in four dosage levels: without reagent, 80g/t, 100g/t and 150g/t. TUF results in the 80/20 mixture were less than 0.4t/h/m2, even with higher dosages of filter aid. For the 90/10 mixture, the addition of filter aid promoted increases in filtering unit rate, despite the increase in moisture in the mixture. The difference in worse filtration performance of the 80/20 mixture compared to the 90/10 mixture was remarkable.