Experimental study on compound sedimentation-fluidized hydraulic classifying of molybdenum tailings

Spiral classifier, hydrocyclone and fine screen are commonly used classification equipments in the mineral processing. But they have some defects, such as difficult to handle and repair, high operating costs, etc. The compound sedimentation-fluidized hydraulic classifier is a newly developed classification equipment, which combines the basic structures and principles of sedimentation classifier and fluidized bed classifier. A molybdenum tailings sample from one concentrator was chose as raw material. Particle size composition, metal elements and hydraulic analysis of this sample were tested. The effects of rising water quantity, feeding velocity and slurry concentration on the classification efficiency were studied. The results show that the optimum rising water quantity had little change with feeding velocity and slurry concentration. It’s a stable value at about 120mL/s. The classifier achieves an optimum synthesis classification efficiency of 61.52% at a lower feed concentration of 30% and a medium feed rate of 200 mL/s.