Abstract
It has been observed in some mineral processing plants that grinding circuit efficiency varies seasonally, such as in some plants which are located in the northern US and Canada and undergo large seasonal temperature changes, with the grinding circuit efficiency different between summer and winter. This indicates that the temperature of grinding circuit slurry has a noticeable effect on grinding performance. The effect has rarely been studied. To this end, an investigation to examine the effects of changing temperature on efficiency and determination of the mechanism responsible has been carried out. Plant investigations and laboratory experiments have been conducted in order to study hydrocyclones. It was demonstrated that when the pressure drop is held constant, the d50(c) size decreased approximately linearly with increasing temperature, while the shape of the reduced efficiency curve remained nearly constant. This effect was determined to be due to changes in slurry viscosity with temperature.
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SME preprint 88-1, SME Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, January. M&MP paper 88–639. Discussion of this paper must be submitted, in duplicate, prior to July 31, 1989.
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Kawatra, S.K., Eisele, T.C., Zhang, D.X. et al. Temperature effect on grinding circuit performance. Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration 6, 85–87 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03402532
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03402532