TY - JOUR
T1 - Specific energy consumption of cake dewatering with vacuum filters
AU - Huttunen, Manu
AU - Nygren, Lauri
AU - Kinnarinen, Teemu
AU - Häkkinen, Antti
AU - Lindh, Tuomo
AU - Ahola, Jero
AU - Karvonen, Vesa
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Peter Jones for providing language help and The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes) for providing funding for the study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd
Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/1/1
Y1 - 2017/1/1
N2 - The energy consumption of vacuum filtration operations in cake filtration depends on the properties of the cake, the filtration conditions applied, and the progress of the cake dewatering process. Operating a vacuum filter at a high pressure difference requires a high air flow rate and thus has high energy consumption. By taking the filtered solids content into consideration together with the power demand and energy consumed at a certain pressure difference level, it is possible to investigate the specific power demand and energy consumption relative to the filtered cake solids content. When the mother liquor in the void space of the filter cake is replaced by air, the flow rate of air through the cake increases, which has a dramatic influence on the specific energy consumption. In this study, dewatering of calcite mine tailings is investigated with respect to the specific power demand and energy consumption of vacuum generation calculated using the assumption of an ideal isentropic process. The results of this study demonstrate clearly that both the air flow rate and the specific energy consumption in dewatering increase sharply after a certain solid content of the cake is reached. The results suggest that pumping costs in vacuum filtration can be reduced substantially by allowing a slight increase in the residual moisture content of the filter cake.
AB - The energy consumption of vacuum filtration operations in cake filtration depends on the properties of the cake, the filtration conditions applied, and the progress of the cake dewatering process. Operating a vacuum filter at a high pressure difference requires a high air flow rate and thus has high energy consumption. By taking the filtered solids content into consideration together with the power demand and energy consumed at a certain pressure difference level, it is possible to investigate the specific power demand and energy consumption relative to the filtered cake solids content. When the mother liquor in the void space of the filter cake is replaced by air, the flow rate of air through the cake increases, which has a dramatic influence on the specific energy consumption. In this study, dewatering of calcite mine tailings is investigated with respect to the specific power demand and energy consumption of vacuum generation calculated using the assumption of an ideal isentropic process. The results of this study demonstrate clearly that both the air flow rate and the specific energy consumption in dewatering increase sharply after a certain solid content of the cake is reached. The results suggest that pumping costs in vacuum filtration can be reduced substantially by allowing a slight increase in the residual moisture content of the filter cake.
KW - Cake dewatering
KW - Cake drying
KW - Specific energy consumption
KW - Specific power demand
KW - Vacuum filtration
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84994344916&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.mineng.2016.10.025
DO - 10.1016/j.mineng.2016.10.025
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84994344916
SN - 0892-6875
VL - 100
SP - 144
EP - 154
JO - Minerals Engineering
JF - Minerals Engineering
ER -
