Case Study: a large mining corporation boosts thickener throughput and water recovery with BASF RHEOMAX® 1030

Large Mining Corporation - Customer Case Study

BASF worked with a large mining corporation processing mineral sands, where slimes thickening was limiting water recovery and plant reliability. The customer’s conventional thickener operation produced relatively low underflow density, caused excess water loss to tailings, and could force bypasses or shutdowns during periods of high slimes, especially when water was scarce in the drier months.

BASF replaced the conventional thickener flocculant with RHEOMAX® 1030, a density and rheology technology product. This improved underflow density from 16% to 20% wt/wt, increased thickener throughput from 1,206 to 1,533 tpd, and reduced dosage from 404 to 267 g/t. BASF also helped eliminate emergency bypasses, recover an extra 2,400 m3/day of water, and boost concentrate production by 60 tonnes/day.