Dense medium separation using a teetered bed separator

A Teetered Bed Separator (TBS) was used autogenously, and with a range of m edia, to study the dense medium separation of a coal,feed slurry, -2.00+0.3 75 mm in size. The feed slurry consisted of separate portions of a clean co al fraction, and a mineral matter fraction. A series of experiments were co nducted using (i) the clean coal only, (ii) the clean coal combined with a portion of the mineral matter, (iii) the clean coal and mineral matter comb ined with dense media such as magnetite, or sand, or barite. These combinat ions of feeds provided a basis for assessing the benefits gained from using autogenous dense media, and a range of possible dense media. It was conlud ed that the TBS performance is improved by increasing the suspension densit y, and that this is best achieved by operating at the lowest possible water fluidization rate, and using a media with a settling velocity of similar m agnitude to the settling velocities of the particles to be separated. (C) 1 999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.