The mud hopper, also known as the cone classifier, is a simple equipment for grading, desliming, and concentration. Its shape is an inverted cone. Set a mining cylinder at the center of the liquid surface, with the bottom edge of the cylinder submerged to a certain depth below the liquid surface. The slurry is fed into the central cylinder along the tangential direction and flows out from the bottom edge after buffering. The flowing slurry flows out radially towards the surrounding overflow weir. During this process, coarse particles with a settling velocity greater than the rising velocity of the liquid flow will settle in the tank and be discharged through bottom sedimentation. Fine particles enter the overflow tank with the surface slurry. The particle size of the ore is generally less than 2mm. The grading particle size is 75 μ m or finer.
The mud hopper has the advantages of simple structure, easy manufacturing, and no power consumption. Due to the large volume of the cone, it also has a mineral storage function in the production process. At present, it is mainly used for desliming the raw ore before the hydraulic classifier to improve the classification efficiency; And it is also installed in front of the grinding equipment to concentrate and dehydrate the ore, in order to increase the feed concentration of the grinding machine; It is also used to control the concentration and quantity of ore feed in front of various slurry selection equipment.