The Wedge Wire: your key to productivity in mineral processing
When it comes to mineral processing solutions, there’s one solution we’ve only touched on briefly in one of our blog articles from the past year: the wedge wire. As we stated in that article, our wedge wires are now assembled here in Canada, which significantly increases our production capacity and reduces delivery time. This has also brought Multotec closer to the market and simplified the buying process. We’ve partnered with local companies for assembly. Maintaining Multotec’s quality standards, we adhere to the same strict control and rigorous inspection processes for all cylinders.
Interstage screening done right!
First, let’s define what a wedge wire is. It’s essentially a filtering system made of a cylinder frame with openings and wires positioned around the outer surface of the screen. This system lets you optimize the volume of materials you recover, like gold or silver and preventing the carbon from moving from one tank to the other, in the CIP, CIL processes. Of course, it’s important to choose the proper wire design for your application, because the solutions are created with a specific wire profile and materials that are adapted to your needs and process target.
Leaching—extracting certain materials and dissolving them into a liquid liquor—requires tailor-made processing equipment. Our perfectly customized solution prevents the most common problems, like pegging and wear, to optimize flow rate and provide the best filter and gold recovery possible.
As you can see, it’s important to have the right wire profile, shape and alloy (generally stainless steel of various grades) for your application. In addition to the points mentioned above, certain leached solution can be more abrasive than others, but the right design can reduce wear and extend life span.
It’s down to the wire
By selecting a proper wire profile and by using different alloys, wear rate can be controlled and reduced and occurrences such as pegging (which directly affects flow rate) can be minimized. Finding the proper balance between the profile shape and wire type ensures longer and better performance.
Wedge wire FAQs
The most common questions about the wedge wire involve the alloys used to design them and ways of increasing productivity. In other words: “How can we find the ideal combination to make our operations the best they can be?” This leads us to explain how filtration volume is optimized.
To increase filtration volume while also maximizing wear resistance, the key is to strike the perfect balance between wire opening size and cylinder length. We need to determine the ideal profile combined with a narrower wire, which increases filtration volume (Open Area).
The Multotec difference
At Multotec, we pride ourselves in offering superior interstage screening solutions with impeccable workmanship. Our wedge wires are designed to enhance accurate cut points, minimizing blinding. What’s more, our symmetrical precision-made wedge wire cylinders are spot welded to create a close tolerance on the opening size.
In addition, our quality control inspections aim to increase your equipment’s lifespan while reducing downtime in your production line.
Our collaboration with premium partners such as Kemix for OEM pump cell design lets us improve our cylinders’ lifespan and offer ongoing support and spare parts. Our transportation and warehouse logistics are also highly optimized, so we can make sure you find your replacement parts easily. This minimizes lead time, so you can get back to production sooner.
As always, our customized solutions come backed by our peerless after-sales service. We’re there from the get-go: we’ll help assess your needs, work with you throughout the process to accurately design your equipment and offer you fine-tuned solutions to facilitate and optimize your operations after your solution is delivered.
For more information, see our advisors’ page.
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Sources:
Wikipedia
Study.com
911metallurgist.com
Multotec.ca
The wedge wire now assembled in Quebec