In the mining industry, the core functions of PAM can be summarized in four areas: flocculation, filtration aid, sedimentation, and flotation assistance. By adjusting slurry characteristics, PAM efficiently achieves solid-liquid separation, with specific values reflected in:
Concentrate Dewatering: Increases the solid content of concentrate products, reducing moisture and lowering subsequent transportation and smelting costs.
Tailings Treatment: Accelerates tailings slurry sedimentation, improves tailings pond utilization efficiency, and promotes clarification and recycling of tailings water.
Flotation Assistance: In certain metal ore flotation processes, PAM serves as a flotation aid, improving metal recovery rates and concentrate grades.
The application of PAM covers nearly all mining sectors. According to disclosures from listed companies in the industry, its application scope includes:
Coal Washing: Used for sedimentation treatment of coal washing wastewater, significantly reducing suspended solids content and enabling closed-loop circulation of wash water.
Metal Mines: Includes dewatering and tailings treatment for ferrous and non-ferrous metal ores such as iron, copper, gold, lead, zinc, and silver.
Non-metallic and Rare Earth Mines: Used for purification and wastewater treatment of non-metallic minerals such as kaolin and quartz sand.
Taking the Lilou Beneficiation Plant as an example, to address product waste and environmental pollution caused by slurry overflow, the plant conducted flocculant optimization selection tests. The results determined that using 0.2% concentration polyacrylamide as the flocculant achieved optimal sedimentation效果 and sedimentation rate. The final overflow product had a suspended solids content of only 0.07 g/L, significantly improving circulating water quality, stabilizing beneficiation indicators, and enhancing production efficiency.
In the smelting process of key metals such as lead, zinc, and silver, PAM serves as a flotation aid, effectively improving metal recovery rates and grades while reducing tailings pollution. This has dual significance for improving resource utilization efficiency and economic benefits for mining enterprises.
