Research progress on compound force field separation equipment of fine particles

ABSTRACT

With the deepening of mineral extraction, the quantity of fine–particle minerals is on the rise. The issue of low separation efficiency is increasingly prominent, thereby driving the advancement of new separation equipment. The compound force field separation equipment integrates two or more force fields, including gravity, centrifugal, magnetic, electrostatic, and interfacial forces, offering a promising approach for the high–efficiency separation of fine particles. This paper summarizes compound force field separation equipment in four categories: enhanced gravity separators, gravity & magnetic separators, gravity & flotation separators, and magnetic & flotation separators, focusing on their structure, operation principle, numerical simulation and application effect. These separators take into account a variety of physical and surface properties of mineral particles and strengthen the separation effect of fine particles. The research of these equipment has become one of the future trends, among which computer simulations bring convenience to optimize the equipment structure, and is an effective means to study the flow field of the equipment as well as the particle motion.

KEYWORDS:

• Compound force field
• fine–particle minerals
• gravity separation
• flotation
• magnetic separation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [52104262].