Abstract: A horizontally-mounted, rotatable drum for mixing chemical additives with an aqueous suspension in order to promote agglomeration of suspended solids and for simultaneously separating water from them. With the drum, slurries of mining silt, clay, sludge and the like already partially dewatered to between about 50% and 60% moisture content can be further dewatered; reductions to 40% moisture content have been obtained. Supplied as a wet slurry to the drum through a hollow tube which also serves as an axle, the slurry is diverted, through a tubular branch fluidly connected to the tube, towards a vertical wall forming one end of the drum. Fed at a rate of between 200 and 300 gallons per minute, the slurry forcefully impinges against the vertical wall, simultaneously subjecting agglomerated particles in the slurry to high shear forces and freeing water. Downstream, before each of two spaced apart, annular retaining rings affixed to the drum, the slurry tends to pool.

Abstract: A machine for conditioning a flocculated mixture formed by adding high molecular weight polymer to a slurry of ultrafine particles such as are found in mining silts, clays, sludges and the like. With this machine, such mixtures, which have already been partially dewatered, can then be substantially further dewatered. Reductions to between about 27% and 30% moisture content have been obtained. The machine includes a perforate endless conveyor belt onto which a continuous flow of the mixture is deposited and an array of stationary inverter plates and rollers in which pairs of rows of plates alternate with the rollers, both the plates and the rollers extending downwardly into the mixture as it is being moved on the belt. The rollers in the array squeeze water out of the mixture without disrupting bonds between the polymers and ultrafine particles and, in the process of applying pressure, contribute to the formation of new bonds.