Minerals

Isodry™

Tailings Solutions

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For decades, we have been providing mines around the world with sustainable and cost-effective solutions to the management, disposal and recycling of mine waste.

Tailings is a critical consideration for the design of slurry transportation systems. Mine operators are continually looking for solutions to the safe transport, storage and disposal of tailings, as well as ways to convert tailings into valuable construction materials and mine backfill.

Our tailings experts recognise that every tailings system is different, so they draw on our wide range of trusted brands to design solutions completely tailored to your requirements.

When designing a solution, our experts consider a wide range of factors including the nature of your tailing material, its particle size distribution, how it can vary over your mine’s life, CAPEX and OPEX, as well as ease of operation, power requirements, and your water management needs.

Weir Technical Centre

In 2016 we opened the Weir Technical Centre which has enhanced our global tailings offering by developing and testing pipeline and tailings solutions, as well as manufacturing specific tailings-based products.

Here at Weir Minerals we are taking the lead in providing reliable tailings solutions that are designed to support the health and safety of everyone on-site and within the wider community, as well as endeavouring to minimise impact on the natural environment.

Our unique designs, engineering excellence and manufacturing capabilities allow us to provide complete, customised tailings solutions around the globe.

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Our extensive range of industry-leading equipment seamlessly works together to provide comprehensive tailings solutions for the mining and aggregate industries.

The Isodry™ solution

Designed to provide safe and reliable tailings management, our flexible range of Isodry™ thickening, filtration and centrifugation equipment is at the core of our comprehensive tailings solutions.

Our Isodry™ range of products have been specifically developed to deliver first-class tailings solutions from pumpable low solids content to a range of high solids applications, including dry stacking and mine backfill.

Whether you’re looking to recover clean water for mineral processing, pump high solids content tailings to a remote dam, or reduce the footprint of tailings through paste tailings or dry stacking, we are uniquely capable of delivering a comprehensive solution, utilising our advanced Isodry™ equipment.

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Warman® centrifugal slurry pumps

Warman® horizontal and vertical slurry pumps are designed for ultra heavy duty applications such as mill discharge, process plant and tailings, pipelines as well as specialty applications.

Cavex® hydrocyclones

Our Cavex® range of hydrocyclones can be configured to meet the unique conditions of a mine site’s tailings system. Used to dewater and deslime the tails, our renowned Cavex® hydrocyclones are built to last.

GEHO® positive displacement pumps

Reliable and highly efficient, GEHO® positive displacement pumps are built to handle the most abrasive slurries, sludges, paste and tailings. Whether you’re transporting highly viscous paste for backfill or sending dewatered tailings to a remote tailings storage facility, GEHO® PD pumps have got you covered.

Linatex® rubber products

Linatex® rubber products are expertly manufactured to deliver outstanding wear performance in the toughest wet abrasive environments. Made using a proprietary technique, our rubber sheet and moulded rubber products are suited for lining hose, feed and discharge chutes, valves, hydrocyclones, and pumps.

Isogate® valves and Delta Industrial™ knife gate valves

We manufacture a large range of valves to suit your tailings needs, from standard to severe duty applications. Our ranges of Isogate® and Delta Industrial™ valves have been engineered and manufactured to deliver on both quality and performance.

Our comprehensive tailings management solutions are also supported by our portfolio of highly regarded and trusted products, all designed to minimise maintenance and to deliver reduced total cost of ownership.

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Isodry™ Thickeners

Designed to provide highly efficient tailings dewatering, Isodry™ thickeners can be customised to suit a wide variety of tailings applications to ensure your site recovers more clean water, more quickly.

Within the feedwell of an Isodry™ thickener, flocculant is added to the slurry to encourage the densest solids to settle to the bottom of the tank. This process ensures easy separation, with solids being processed at the base of the product while liquids are separated via overflow at the top.

Isodry™ thickeners are available as part of a wide range of solutions, from standalone units up to complete solutions featuring hydrocyclones, filter presses and decanter centrifuges.

Intelligent automation can be added to optimise the thickener’s performance in applications with a variable feed solid percentage and variable flow rate. This also assists with optimising the flocculant dosage and the underflow’s solids concentration.

We can supply a range of thickeners (from conventional to paste) giving you the ability to create products with 30-70% solids percentage by weight.

Customisable, easy to maintain and cost effective.

Our Isodry™ thickeners use optimised rake lifts and modern feedwell and dilution systems to achieve high performance per square metre and to produce an underflow with solids content of up to 70%.

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Design features

• Integrated tailings solution offering transport from plant tailings outlet to a remote tailing storage facility, with an integrated thickener and a Warman® or GEHO® underflow pipeline pumping system

• Low maintenance and rugged mechanisms (drive, rakes)

• Optimised feedwell for best settling rate

• On-site service available worldwide

Engineered to order with the following options:

• Bolted, welded, concrete tank with local fabricator and installation

• Modular flocculant plant which can be customised to meet all applications, including small to large dosages and storage capacities

• Feed pumps

• Distribution tank

• Feed measurement (flow rate and density)

• Variable dilution pump that supports up to 20000m³/h with minimal electrical power

• Settling rate control

• Mud bed level measurement continuous or with diver

• Overflow turbidity measurement

• Underflow mud bed pressure and density measurement

• Underflow pumps system (management of duty and stand by lines, flushing and gland seal water)

• Thickener control options range from basic logic to the most advanced process control (APC)

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Isodry™ Decanter Centrifuges

Isodry™ decanter centrifuges use centrifugal force to reliably separate solids in the most demanding conditions. A screw conveyor rotates inside the machine at a different speed to the bowl, forcing the solids to one side of the machine while the liquid overflows out the other side.

Equipped with heavy duty gearboxes, the solid bowl or decanter centrifuge can separate up to 65-90% dryness, depending on particle size and the specific gravity of the solids.

This flexibility makes Isodry™ decanter centrifuges ideal for a variety of tailings dewatering solutions, including continuous dewatering, removing silt and clay, or even working with ultrafine particles below 10μm.

The cake produced can easily be transported by truck, conveyors or with our GEHO® high positive displacement pumps.

Continuous and reliable performance without the need for an operator.

Fully automatic and remote controlled, Isodry™ decanters are designed for remote operation and feature anti-abrasion wear protection and tailings-optimised scroll geometry to deliver long wear life with minimal maintenance.

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Design features

• Fully automatic, remotely controlled machine

• Solid and robust design for demanding operating conditions and to minimise maintenance

• Heavy duty gearbox with the highest torque currently available on the market

• Conveyor and optimised scroll geometry designed for tailings

• Optimised wear protection for abrasive media with wear elements designed to be replaced after one year

• Wetted material produced in carbon steel for noncorrosive tailings (also available with stainless steel)

• High capacity machine with dry solid capacities of up to 50-80tph per machine

• Scraper system on solid outlet to ensure the transport of the stickiest solids

• Machine designed to have a rotor exchange less than one shift to minimise the turn downtime

Engineered to order with the following inclusions:

• Installation in a concrete pad

• Feed box with slurry valve and water valve for flushing feed line and machine

• Warman® feed pump and a Linatex® hose for connections

• Centrate hopper

• Cake hopper connected to conveyor or pump

• Sump pump for centrate and wash rejected back into feed thickener

• VSD (variable speed drive) for controlling the machine motors and feed pump

• Automatic control system which monitors health of machine and controls cake dryness in real time

• On-site service available worldwide

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Isodry™ Filter Presses

Available with a range of chamber and membrane designs, Isodry™ filter presses are an effective way to produce a high volume of product with very high levels of dryness, while recovering crystal clear filtrate.

Tailings are fed from the side of the filter press and fill the internal chambers. Once filled, the internal chambers are squeezed and pressurised, this process forces liquid from the solids turning the tailings into stackable cakes with minimal moisture content.

Isodry™ filter presses support a variety of tailings management applications, including dry stacking, truck transportation to tailings storage facilities, and maximising water recovery.

We specialise in the integration of filter presses into the mining process, including filter press construction and filter cloth application. And our Weir Minerals Service team offers support and optimisation throughout the life of your filter press.

Isodry™ filter presses can produce products between 70-95% dryness. They are available in three key designs:

- modular side bar design;

- high capacity overhead design with automatic operation; and

- short-cycle design which can discharge 80 plates in less than two minutes.

Our Isodry™ filter presses use industry-leading mechanical design to consistently provide reliable tailings separation to the highest levels of dryness.

Reliable tailings separation to the highest levels of dryness.

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Design features

• A range of chamber and membrane designs

• Overhead A42500F can produce up to 4800 tonnes of dry tailings per day per machine (engineered by ANDRITZ)

• Industry leading mechanical design

• Cycle time can be as short as 15-20 minutes with 220 plates for optimal tailings production

• High pressure plate washing to support cloth regeneration

• Quick cloth exchange to maximise working time

• Withstands up to 25 bars filtration for high dryness without cake blow (optimised for low OPEX and maximum dryness without the need for MegaWatt compressors)

• On-site service available worldwide

Engineered to order with the following options:

• Slurry feed tank and piping design

• Feed pump design

• Spools and hose to connect the filter press with right pressure balance over each side of unit

• Membrane squeezing with water system

• Cake blow

• Delta Industrial™ valves for each stage of the filter cycle

• High pressure pump (over 90 bars) for cloth washing

• Warman® filtrate pumps

• Warman® sump pumps

• Core wash and core blow

• Conveyor system and structure to support the unit

• Stacking system

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Our Weir Minerals Service teams deliver world class service, solutions and support wherever you may be.

With an extensive global network and the ability to service on-site, or at one of our 130 dedicated service centres, we are always there when you need us no matter how remote your operation is.

Our knowledge is built on nearly 150 years of engineering expertise and experience. Our engineering services ensure that you not only receive the best-in-class equipment, but expert configuration and support to optimise each of your applications.

We can help you with anything you need from technical expertise and advice on how to extend product life, to increasing uptime and improving the efficiency of your mine or aftermarket spare parts.

As your trusted partner, we work together with you over the entire life of your product. This helps to ensure that it reliably performs to its original design, and is able to run continually with no unplanned downtime to maximise the profitability of your operation.

Wherever you’re managing tailings, our unrivalled global service centre network means our dedicated support and tailings experts are where you need them, when you need them.

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Minerals

Copyright © 2020, Weir Minerals Australia Ltd. All rights reserved. The trademarks mentioned in this document are trademarks and/or registered trademarks in the name of The Weir Group PLC and/or its subsidiaries. ANDRITZ is not a trademark of any company forming part of the Weir Group PLC. WMD0870/202003

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