Multotec has released a polyurethane screen panel named TeePee which is designed to improve cost saving for both land and marine based diamond industries, and is already proving very popular in dewatering applications. The injection moulded polyurethane (PU) panel is unique worldwide, effectively doubling the open area for the same footprint. The TeePee has been field tested and makes it possible to achieve open areas of 27% with slotted apertures of 0.5 mm, 0.63 mm and 0.8 mm. Other applications of the TeePee include degritting, drain and rinse, static and feed preparation screens.
Multotec’s Derrick Alston says the company intends to increase the available aperture size range to 1.4 mm and reduce it as far as 300 micron to accommodate the various requirements of diamond and mineral processing.
“The TeePee panel was developed with open area in mind and the resultant design provides a significant open area that has been shown to be double what was previously achieved with conventional Multotec Hi-Flow panels for the same aperture and with double the drainage capability,” Alston says. “In dewatering applications there’s a significant improvement in drainage, further reducing the moisture content of the oversized material. This makes the panel an ideal solution on plants where existing dewatering screens are overloaded.”
Multotec Group CEO Thomas Holtz comments: “Although we have a broad product portfolio, our business model encompasses a focus on product groupings that suit certain commodities and we continue to develop and fine-tune products to suit these specific applications. And, to offer process support, we deploy seasoned veterans from the various mineral processing environments.
“Optimised screen panels and cyclones are pivotal to achieving the high efficiencies required in this industry,” he says. “I’ve heard a metallurgist put it this way: if the bottom cut-off size on the screen panels is inaccurate, you throw away diamonds. If the coarse size is imprecise, you break diamonds and if the cyclones are inefficient, you lose diamonds.
“Our cyclones for dense media separation (DMS) are recognised worldwide as being the most efficient in the market today, owing to their precise and well thought-out design, as well as their proven efficiencies.”
DMS is known to be one of the most complex unit processes in mineral processing today, particularly if cyclones are used. The cyclone forms the core of the DMS process and is one of the reasons that the diamond industry continues to favour high chrome as a material of construction.
