LAUSR

Abstract Tailings management and water recovery from mineral processing tailings which contain high amount of fine and clay materials are very important and this matter presents considerable challenge. Any improvement in disposal and tailings filtration methods requires understanding of fluid flow in the cake pores and filter media, which are affected by various parameters. In this study, the effects of physical parameters on the specific cake resistance (α), cake formation rate, moisture content, and filter cloth resistance in the filtration of iron processing plant tailings have been examined by vacuum Top-Feed Leaf method. The main parameters which investigated in this work were cloth type, solid content, pressure drop, and thickness of cake. Experiments results showed that the polypropylene type B (PP-B) cloth was suitable for filtration process, because it had the least resistance to fluid flow. Increasing solid amount from 30 percent to 60 percent, increased specific cake resistance from 96 × 10+10 to 230 × 10+10 kg/m and cake formation rate was also increased from 0.18 to 0.46 mm/min and αwas between 1011 and 1013. Results also showed that the iron tailings had a moderate filtration capability, and based on the compressibility factor result (n: 0.56), the filter cake was compressible. This study clearly determined the action of physical parameters on dewatering mechanism and the fluid flow through the cake and cloth pores, and demonstrated the possibility of enhancing the water recycling in the industrial plant by choosing appropriate level for each parameters.