SHEAR-THINNING OF SLURRIES

摘要

A method of shear-thinning a slurry includes transferring slurry to be shear-thinned from 5 a primary vessel or reservoir (14) to a secondary vessel or reservoir (18), withdrawing at least a portion of the slurry in the secondary vessel or reservoir (18) by means of a pump or motive device (24) as a shear device thereby shear-thinning the withdrawn slurry, and returning or recycling at least a portion of the shear-thinned slurry back to the secondary vessel or reservoir (18). The slurry is withdrawn through an outlet (22) 10 from the secondary vessel or reservoir (18) and is returned to the secondary vessel or reservoir (18) through an inlet (36) into the secondary vessel or reservoir (18) with the inlet (36) being spaced from the outlet (22). The returned shear-thinned slurry has a reduced yield stress compared to slurry in the primary vessel or reservoir (14) and the returned shear-thinned slurry is allowed to mix in the secondary vessel or reservoir (18) 15 with slurry transferred from the primary vessel or reservoir (14) thereby to lower the overall yield stress of slurry in the secondary vessel or reservoir (18). Some of the slurry in the secondary vessel or reservoir (18) with the lower overall yield stress is transferred away.