SEPRO SYSTEMS Mineral Processing Equipment & Solutions

Modern gold centrifuges have become standard equipment in most gold recovery processes because they are a
simple, inexpensive, and effective way of recovering free gold – but like with any process, there is always room for
improvement.

Sepro Mineral Systems, Canada’s largest mineral processing equipment supplier, has developed the new Frontier™
centrifuge bowl (patent pending). This innovative bowl will soon be offered on all Falcon centrifugal concentrators
and as a direct replacement part for most models of the Knelson™ centrifugal concentrator.

Modern gold centrifuges consist of a vertical, rotating bowl with water-fluidized riffles. The high g-force generated
by the bowl rotation separates heavy and light particles. The water-fluidized riffles allow the heavier particles to
displace the lighter particles and produce a high-grade gold concentrate.

Benefits to Using A Gold Centrifuge

Before Downstream Recovery
Processes

• First, gold is removed from the

grinding circuit before it is flattened
and over-ground, reducing the
likelihood of smearing on grinding
media or mill liners.

• Second, a high-grade, saleable gold

concentrate is typically generated
in less than an hour, as opposed
to cyanidation circuits where gold
Figure 1: Falcon Concentrator with new Frontier™ Bowl inventory can be locked up for days.
These factors lead to less gold
inventory in the circuit and faster
gold payment.

• Third, removing free gold particles

and larger gold nuggets from the
circuit means that downstream
processes receive slurry with
a lower and more stable gold
grade. The free gold particles
typically cause much of the
extreme grade variability in gold
deposits. Removing the free gold
means more stable cyanidation or
flotation processes and less reagent
consumption. A gold cyanidation
or flotation circuit can be run much
more efficiently when centrifugal
gravity concentrators are installed
Figure 2: Modern gold centrifuges in the milling circuit. ■
installed in a grinding circuit

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 SEPRO SYSTEMS Mineral Processing Equipment & Solutions

Rich History of the Development

of Fluidized Gold Centrifuges
MacNicol patented the first fluidized centrifuge
in Australia in the 1930s; however, the
equipment was not popularized until the
development of the Knelson™ and Falcon
concentrators in the 1980s.
The Knelson™ concentrator consists of
an inclined, constant-angle bowl wall and
fluidized riffles along the entire height of
the bowl. This design has been essentially
unchanged since the initial development.
The Falcon concentrator began as a near-
vertical, smooth-walled bowl specifically
designed for fine gold recovery. Over time,
the Falcon SB concentrator bowl evolved and
now consists of an inclined, smooth-walled
separation zone followed by a vertical recovery
zone with fluidized riffles. These differences in
bowl geometry result in a significantly different
concentration mechanism between the two
centrifuges. ■
Figure 3: Knelson™ Concentrator (top) and
Slurry Profiles Falcon Concentrator (bottom)

When a mineral slurry is subjected to a

centrifugal field, it forms a natural angle
of repose based on the slurry density (the
relative amount of water and solids) and the
particle size distribution in the slurry. We call
this the “dynamic slurry face.”

This angle of the dynamic slurry face

is typically 5-10 degrees from vertical.
Coarser particles and higher density
slurry will create a higher angle, while
finer particles and a lower density slurry
will create a lower angle.
The key difference between the two types of
centrifuges is that the bowl angle of the Knelson™
concentrator is shallower than the angle of the
dynamic slurry face, while the bowl angle of
the Falcon concentrator is steeper. The overall
bowl angle of the Knelson™ concentrator is Figure 4: Falcon SB Concentrator in Operation
approximately 13 degrees from vertical. Because
this angle is shallower than the dynamic slurry
face, the slurry can freely exit, and there is no
slurry face created in the bowl.

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 SEPRO SYSTEMS Mineral Processing Equipment & Solutions

Like the riffles in a sluice box, the Knelson™

riffles create small eddy currents as the
slurry falls over each riffle. These eddy
currents disturb the material bed and help
recover heavy particles over light particles
preferentially. As the slurry travels up the bowl
wall, the many riffles give the particles many
opportunities to be recovered.

The Falcon concentrator has a two-stage bowl,

and each stage has a different wall angle.
The lower section of the bowl has a smooth,
unfluidized wall 14 degrees from vertical.
The upper section of the bowl is vertical and
contains fluidized riffles.

The lower section of the bowl allows particles

to smoothly stratify by density as they move
up the wall. Heavier particles are pushed
outwards, creating a high-grade zone of
particles closer to the bowl wall. The fluidized
riffles then capture these high-grade particles
in the upper section of the bowl. Because the
upper section is vertical, the riffles are behind
Figure 5: Slurry profile in a Knelson™ Concentrator the dynamic slurry face, and no turbulent eddy
currents are created.

These two different mechanisms of gold

particle recovery have caused speculation
in the mining industry about differences
in gold recovery between the Knelson™
and Falcon concentrator. There have been
anecdotal reports that the Knelson™ recovers
more coarse gold particles, and the Falcon
recovers more fine gold particles. However,
no one has published any rigorous, controlled
experiments at the industrial scale to
determine the relative performance of these
two types of gold centrifuges. ■

Falcon vs. Knelson™

Sepro’s team decided to investigate the gold
recovery of each bowl type by testing the
Knelson™ and Falcon bowl geometries on
a common mechanical platform, the Falcon
SB400, at Sepro’s research facility near
Vancouver, Canada.

Figure 6: Slurry profile in a Falcon Concentrator

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 SEPRO SYSTEMS Mineral Processing Equipment & Solutions

The graph on the right shows that the

Falcon bowl achieved slightly higher
recovery on the low-grade, fine gold-
copper ore, and the Knelson™ bowl
achieved slightly higher recovery on
the high-grade, well-graded gold-silver
ore. Both samples’ size by size gold
recovery analysis indicates that the
Falcon bowl is recovering slightly more
fine gold particles and the Knelson™
bowl is recovering slightly more coarse
gold particles. However, all recovery
differences appear to be within the
range of experimental error, so it is not
possible to definitively conclude that
one profile is clearly and significantly
outperforming the other at any given
gold particle size. ■

Sepro Frontier™ Bowl

Figure 7: Falcon and Knelson™ gold recovery results
Sepro also tested an innovative new
bowl geometry with a quasi-parabolic
riffle profile, the Frontier™ bowl. The
concept behind the parabolic riffle
profile was to create a bowl with riffles
on both sides of the dynamic slurry
face. We also wanted a smooth path
for slurry flow up the bowl wall. Under
ideal design conditions, the bottom
riffles begin with a relative angle of 30
degrees and progressively decrease in
angle until the top riffles are vertical.

Sepro wanted to have riffles on both sides

of the dynamic slurry face so that the
concentration mechanisms from both the
Knelson™ and Falcon concentrators could be
utilized.

The bottom riffles are exposed to the slurry

flow, creating a turbulent eddy current
concentration zone. The top riffles are not
directly exposed to the slurry flow, creating a
relatively quiet zone of particle separation and
recovery. In between is a transition zone where
the angle of the bowl wall is equal to the angle
of the dynamic slurry face.
Figure 8: Slurry profile in a Sepro Frontier™ Bowl

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 SEPRO SYSTEMS Mineral Processing Equipment & Solutions

The variability in average feed grade between

the two trials was approximately 10%, with the
Frontier™ tests experiencing a slightly higher
feed grade. Despite the higher feed grade,
the Frontier™ bowl generated a lower cyclone
overflow grade, further demonstrating that the
Frontier™ bowl removed more gold from the
grinding circuit.

The standard Knelson™ bowl achieved

a cyclone overflow grade of 11.0 g/t Au
while the Sepro Frontier™ bowl reduced the
cyclone overflow grade to 5.8 g/t Au, a 47%
improvement. ■

Summary
There are several reasons why gravity
centrifuges have become an industry standard:
with only a few moving parts they have a
Figure 10: Frontier™ vs Knelson™ Plant Trial Results,
Gold Recovery low cost of operation; consume a relatively
low amount of power; only require water for
effective particle recovery; are insensitive to
large changes in feed; and can handle a wide
range of particles sizes, typically from 0-2mm.

The Sepro Frontier™ bowl represents the first

significant improvement in gravity gold recovery
in more than 20 years, and we expect it will
improve recoveries around the gold mining
industry. Please contact Sepro Mineral Systems
for more information. ■

About Sepro
Sepro Mineral Systems has been providing
mineral processing equipment, technology
and expertise to the mining industry for more
Figure 11: Frontier™ vs Knelson™ Plant Trial Results, than 30 years. Initially starting with cutting
Cyclone Overflow Grade edge gravity separation technology, Sepro
has expanded its expertise over the years
to include a wide range of comminution and
gravity separation processes, methods and
technologies.

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