PROCESS FOR SEPARATING MIXTURES OF PARTICLES

摘要

The disclosure embraces a process for separating mixtures of particles such as fine coal and shale and includes the steps of mixing the raw coal and shale with a heavy media suspension of magnetizable particles and separating the mixture into heavy and light fractions, feeding the heavy and light fractions to separate screens on which the light and heavy fractions are drained and washed to recover coarse clean coal and coarse washed refuse as well as undiluted and dilute suspensions of these particles; the undiluted suspensions are combined and, at a secondary separating stage, the derived undiluted secondary mixture is separated into heavy and light fractions with the heavy and light fractions being diluted by the dilute suspensions from the respective heavy and light fractions obtained at the first separation stage and screens; the light and heavy fractions from the secondary separation stage are then fed through recovering apparatus to recover a fine coal fraction, a fine refuse fraction and the magnetizable particles which are thereafter mixed with the raw coal at the initial stage of the process.