Manufacture of an integrated cooling tower / demister for slurry in FRP material for the recovery of refractory gold and silver as part of a mining project in Las Lagunas, Dominican Republic.
Characteristics
The design of the cooling tower is the property of Spanish engineering company Zincobre on which it holds a patent called ZACT.
This equipment has to work in highly corrosive environments (hence the use of plastics in its manufacture) as well as coping with significant temperature changes and handling fluids with a high concentrations of suspended solids.
Operating conditions
En el caso de la torre para Las Lagunas, las condiciones de trabajo fueron:
- Volume: 128 m³/h
- Inflow temperature: 97ºC
- Outflow temperature: 45ºC
- Solids in suspension: 34%
Design
The towers manufactured under the ZACT patent are of octagonal section, both the tower and the demister being manufactured from panels, with final assembly on site.
In the case of the tower for Las Lagunas, the dimensions of the different elements were:
- Diameter (registered): 5300 mm
- Height of tower: 12000 mm
- Height of demister: 930 mm
- Diameter of diffuser: 3500 mm (convergent / divergent nozzles)
Materials
The building material was 100% in FRP with a base of novolac epoxy vinyl ester resin (specifically DERAKANE 470/300), due to high fluid demand.
The entire manufacturing process was by contact molding. To this end, molds were custom-built for the manufacture of the panels for the tower and demister and the sections that made up the diffuser (warped geometry). The molds were designed entirely by PH Technology.
The final weight of the assembly was around 8000 kg. The construction of the tower was carried out in the second half of 2011.
