COM hikers pose in front of the “hydrocyclone” or just cyclone along the Sotol Forest Trail.
Carol Brown reported on Facebook: “On Saturday Jan. 16 eight people hiked 7.5 miles and four hours on these trails: Boulder Dash, Sotol Forest, Rock Shock, and Mad Cow.” On their trek they came across a hydrocyclone just sitting out in the middle of nowhere. Here are some interesting facts and questions about his piece of mining equipment.
Cyclone is a shortened name for a piece of equipment called a hydrocyclone. (“Hydro” for water + cyclone.) It is used in mining to separate finer materials in a slurry from coarser particles. A slurry is a mixture of solids and water. Under pressure from a pump, the slurry from mining comes into a cyclone and a vortex (like a tornado) is created because of centripetal force. (Because the slurry hits the inside wall of the cylinder, it is forced into the circular motion of a vortex.) Less dense materials are forced out of the outtake at the top, while heavier materials fall to the apex (bottom outlet) where they are expelled and can be ground up again and reintroduced in a fresh batch of slurry. The purpose of the cyclone is to separate valuable minerals from gangue, commercially worthless materials.
According to Wikipedia -
Applications include:
In the potato, cassava, wheat and corn starch industry for both concentration and washing of the crude starch milk. Hydrocyclone replace separators as a more price efficient separation technique.
In pulp and paper mills to remove sand, staples, plastic particles and other contaminants.
In the drilling industry to separate sand from the expensive clay that is used for lubrication during the drilling.
In oil industry to separate oil from water or vice versa.
In metal working to separate metal particles from cooling liquid.
In French fries and potato chips plants for in-line starch recovery from cutting water and from waste water.
In mineral processing, hydrocyclones are used extensively both to classify particles for recirculation in grinding circuits and to differentiate between the economic mineral and gangue.
To remove sand and silt particles from irrigation water for drip irrigation purposes.
From https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/hydrocyclone-workingprinciple
Some questions:
The hydrocyclone that you see could not have operated where it is now. It would need a source of water and a powerful enough pump to thrust the slurry into the cylinder. What is it doing here?
Could this piece of equipment have been used for the nearby Tin Mine while it was in operation?
If the Tin Mine, what were the sources of water (had to be piped in) and power?
Based on the information above, can you identify the feed inlet for the slurry? The apex? The outtake?
Wouldn’t it be great to “rescue” this piece of equipment and move it to a museum where it can be displayed along with an exhibit on the El Paso Tin Mine?