Tailings and Solid Liquid Separation

Tailings and Solid–Liquid Separation: A Practitioner’s Handbook

By Tony Escorcio

This handbook is written for mineral process engineers, metallurgists, plant operators, consultants and students who work with thickening, filtration, water recovery and tailings management.

The book follows slurry from the process plant through dewatering and tailings placement, then follows recovered water back through reclaim and reuse.

It covers slurry characterisation, settling theory, flocculation, rheology, thickener design, filtration, plant water balance, dry-stack tailings, paste tailings, dam safety, governance and closure.

The emphasis is practical: what to measure, how to interpret test work, how to size equipment, how to troubleshoot operating problems, and how process decisions affect water recovery and tailings facility performance.

This eBook is accompanied by an Excel Workbook with the following:

1. Thickener Sizing Coe–Clevenger, Talmage–Fitch and flux-curve unit-area methods.

2. Flocculant Dosing Active-polymer demand, make-up solution and reagent cost.

3. Rheology Fitting Bingham and Herschel–Bulkley regression of viscometer data.

4. Cake Filtration Specific cake resistance from a constant-pressure leaf test.

5. Filter Selection Weighted-score selection matrix across filter types.

6. Plant Water Balance Stream-by-stream water accounting and reclaim.

7. Tailings Facility WB Seasonal facility water balance and freeboard.

8. Dry-Stack Trade-off Filtered vs wet: water, footprint and cost.

9. Paste Backfill Binder content for a target UCS, and binder cost.

10. Integrated Case Study Key results for the 476.2 t/h plant, drawn from all sheets

Two templates are also downloaded with the purchase:

• Thickener Operation and Troubleshooting Checklist
• Tailings Water Balance and Reclaim Review Template

Tailings and Solid–Liquid Separation: A Practitioner’s Handbook

A practical reference for modern mineral processing and tailings management.