Mine Tailings Pump Applications

Mining incorporates various pumps in many applications to move slurries and liquids from one part of the mine to another. Conventional centrifugal pumps quickly destroyed and lose their tolerances and suction capabilities. On the other hand, positive displacement pumps are costly to maintain and have limited pumping capabilities.

Some of the main pumping issues in the Mine industry are lined and unlined tailings ponds, underground slurry and dewatering pumping, sumps, process pumps, and pumping the target mineral laden material.

Tailings ponds are a necessary feature of all mining operations to store the residual byproduct of mineral extraction. If the ponds hit capacity, new tailings ponds need to be built or old tailings ponds need to be cleaned out. The tailings often have very low or high pH which causes a lot of difficulty for centrifugal and positive displacement pumps. The acidic and alkaline tailings wear out the impellers on centrifugal pumps which cause the pumps to lose tolerance and hence suction capabilities. The same occurs with positive displacement pumps and both lead to costly downtime and expensive spare parts. The same wearing of parts also occurs due to the abrasive nature of the tailings slurry.

The EDDY Pump design does not consist of close tolerances between the rotor and volute. This allows the EDDY Pump to pump low and high pH abrasive slurries without being worn down and losing suction. This, in turn, saves the client a significant amount of money in spare parts and to not experience costly downtime.

For tailings ponds that are designed with plastic liners, a more surgical approach needs to be taken for sediment removal. Conventional dredging equipment used to remove the tailings cannot be used in this situation because of the damage that it could potentially cause to the liner. EDDY Pump instead has designed a whole series of dredging equipment that is liner-safe and will not harm or disturb the liner.

Sumps in the mining industry collect lots of residual mining material, debris, and liquids. These sumps pose a constant problem to keep them cleaned out so that production can continue. The material that accumulates in the sumps causes constant problems for sumps pumps. Debris constantly clogs centrifugal sump pumps and the abrasive and corrosive slurries destroy the impellers and cause constant pump part replacement.

The EDDY Pump, on the other hand, can be deployed in various pump configurations to cleanout mining sumps without causing significant downtime and costly repairs. The EDDY Pump sump pump can be deployed electrically or hydraulically and either submersible or self-priming. The pump casing can be made from any material and is often cast out of high chrome or stainless steel for sump pump applications. The EDDY Pump non-clogging design easily passes any piece of material or debris without clogging. Also, based on the EDDY Pump design not having an impeller, there is no issue with wearing down and losing tolerance. This results in a pump that is significantly less expensive to maintain.

In Underground Mining operations, the process of dewatering and pumping slurries are a fundamental component to a successful mining operation. There is little space to maneuver and deploy heavy and complicated pumping systems. Conventional centrifugal pumps will work okay for moving water, but when any slurry gets in the pump, it causes blockages and pump failures.

EDDY Pump Corporation has designed a variety of pumps and dredging equipment to work in underground mining. EDDY Pump has electric and hydraulic submersible pumps along with the ability to build hydraulic power units and electrical power units. These systems can be scaled down to meet the smallest and lightest sizes to be easily deployable while still being able to pump slurries with a high percentage of solids. EDDY Pump also has trailer mounted self-priming pumps that can easily move from space to space with a limited size envelope and weight. Finally, EDDY Pump also has remotely operated dredges that can move easily and run without the need for a lot of manpower.

Moving slurries and material is fundamental in mining operations. Therefore, there are hundreds if not thousands of Process Pumps and conveyors in a mining operation. The corrosive and abrasive pumping of mine slurry causes many issues for centrifugal and positive displacement pumps. This is not the issue with the EDDY Pump due to its design. Mines are saving millions of dollars a year on spare parts and costly downtime by utilizing the EDDY Pump within their mine process pumps. Furthermore, the EDDY Pump’s ability to move high solids allow it to replace the need for conveyors and save power plants millions of dollars in conveyor systems with constant maintenance issues.

Sometimes it is best to use a Dredge Mining Pump the target mineral-rich material directly to the separation equipment. The higher the percent of solids that you can do in this process saves a significant amount of time and money to treat the water. The target material is often very consolidated and abrasive and causes many issues for centrifugal pumps. The EDDY Pump has been designed in many dredge deployments to optimize your solids content for ease of mining.

During mining, froth flotation is often used during the mineral processing stages to help separate the solids from the heavy slurries by taking advantages of differences in their hydrophobicity. The first step in the process is to gather and finely crush and grind chunks of ore into fine particles, with the goal of separating the individual minerals into their own separate grains. The particles are then mixed with water, and the entire solution is then pumped to the mineral processing facility in slurry form and the desired mineral is rendered hydrophobic by the addition of a surfactant or collector chemical. This allows the minerals to bind to the air bubbles of the froth, bringing the majority of valuable minerals to the surface of the slurry in a concentrated form, making it easier to collect.

In this sense, mining froth can be described as an aerated slurry that either occurs naturally or, in some cases, purposely created to assist with the separation of minerals. Froth flotation is an important step used for the recovery and upgrading of sulfide ores, allowing far more economic recovery of valuable metals from much lower grade ore. Frothing is usually performed in multiple stages to maximize the recovery of target minerals. Historically first developed and used in mining, this process is now also used in other industries including paper and pulp and wastewater treatment.

Pumps run less efficiently when pumping aerated liquids. The higher amount of trapped air in the pump will end up decreasing the pumps flow, head, and overall efficiency. Air that becomes trapped in the slurry can collect near the impeller eye, forming a column that effectively blocks fluid from reaching it. This effect is common with centrifugal pumps and is known as air locking or air binding your pump. Furthermore, the volume of the froth is about the same as a liquid, making it nearly impossible to predict precisely how much air will be pulled from the froths. Due to this, froth pumps run a bit differently than standard liquid pumps.

The Eddy Pump patented design is ideal for handling the pumping of froth. Based on the open design of the Eddy Pump rotor the air from the froth is able to dissipate quicker than with any other pump on the market. This allows for the Eddy Pump to pump froth from all industries without the usual wear and tear on pumps. Furthermore, due to the design of Eddy Pump not having any critical tolerances, the wear on the pump does not cause constant pump failure and the need for costly spare parts. On average the Eddy Pump will outlast the leading centrifugal pumps in pumping froth by 300% without needing to replace the wear parts, leading to massively improved production rates in multiple applications.

2. Cost Reduction

When you use a conventional boring or mining machine, you need to stop the procedure to collect the debris each time the mine is filled with it. After stopping the process, you need a method to collect the slurry and transport it out of the mine. Many mining operations typically either hire operators to use heavy material moving equipment or employ a conveyor belt to carry out the mine tailings removal process. Even after removing the mine tailings from the mine, you need to invest in hiring expensive bulldozers, excavators, and trucks to carry out the transport of spent material from the mine location to a disposal location. Since the use of an EDDY Pump allows you to carry out the transportation of debris simultaneously, you can reduce the cost of the entire process considerably.

3. High Resistance to Wear

After significant time and usage of traditional mining pumps, they tend to wear down quickly due to the harsh environment due to a combination of high abrasion, heat, and corrosion which are all commonly encountered with various types of mine tailings. The wear and tear process, over time, makes the volute or pump casing brittle and rapidly chews through impellers, causing the pump to drastically lose efficiency and creates costly downtime for maintenance and pump replacements. The wear and tear will get worse as more and more of the mine tailing material comes into contact with the impeller and other critical pump components. Since the EDDY Pump is designed to keep the majority of material away from the rotor, it drastically increases the life of the pump, resulting in far less maintenance and downtime which directly translates to increased production.

4. Lowest Lifecycle Cost

In 2007, a life cycle cost analysis was done for 25 of the EDDY Pumps on USCG ships, comparing their current pump versus an EDDY Pump. An estimated $17,717,000 in savings was discovered. Much of these savings are related to the absence of overhauling costs associated with the EDDY Pump, along with the minimal corrective maintenance costs.

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