Olcay Barreda, RH, de Araujo, AC, Valadão, GES & Hernández, CA 2009, 'Development and Testing of a Laboratory Scale Paste Thickener', in R Jewell, AB Fourie, S Barrera & J Wiertz (eds), Paste 2009: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Seminar on Paste and Thickened Tailings, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, pp. 119-128, https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_repo/963_14
(https://papers.acg.uwa.edu.au/p/963_14_Olcay Barreda/)
Abstract: The major objective of this study was the design, construction and testing of a laboratory scale paste 
thickener. This unit has a modular construction and can be operated on a totally batch mode or as a fully 
continuous thickener. The thickener was constructed in Plexiglas in order to allow the direct observation of 
the slurry behaviour inside the equipment. It has two modules reaching a maximum height of 1.2 m with 
10 cm of internal diameter. It still makes use of a system for taking samples with orifices of 1cm of internal 
diameter and equally spaced in the vertical axes by 9 cm. The mineral pastes produced by the equipment 
were characterised for their rheological properties by means the determination of: viscosity (viscometry), 
consistency (slump test), fluidity (flume test) and yield stress measurements. The best result without the 
addition of flocculant in the tests, with the recirculation of the pulp and a residence time of 10 min, was 
reached when the slurry was taken from orifice number 3 to orifice 1. The paste reached 55.6% of solids by 
weight under this testing condition. Considering the addition of flocculants the best result was achieved with 
recirculation of the slurry from orifice number 4 to orifice number 1. This paste reached 53% of solids by 
weight. Employing two modules of the thickener, the final paste with recirculation reached 56.7% of solids 
by weight.