When the Cavex® hydrocyclone was introduced to the industry over 20 years ago it set the benchmark for the rest of the market. The recently launched Cavex® 2 took this product range a step further with enhanced performance and design. It marked a new era in separation technology, with its LIG+™ advanced laminar spiral inlet and size of the feed chamber, delivering performance unlike any other cyclone on the market.

Now Weir Minerals has expanded the Cavex® 2 product line with the introduction of the Cavex® 2 650, which addresses the continual demand for increased operational and circuit capacity. It is the second in a range of standard sizes that Weir Minerals is planning to release.

Lerato Ramanala, product manager hydrocyclones at Weir Minerals Africa, says the Cavex® 2 650 hydrocyclone offers excellent separation efficiency and is ideal for both brownfields and greenfields projects, delivering operational flexibility and great recoveries.

She sees major demand for the new 650 model coming from customers with high throughput plants that require coarser cut points, a requirement typically found in gold, platinum and copper applications.

She adds that the new 650 model hydrocyclone – like the other sizes in the Cavex® 2 range – can easily be retrofitted at existing sites, replacing either the original Cavex® or competitor cyclones. “This allows increased throughput while using the same footprint, and customers are very enthusiastic about this feature,” she says.

It is important to note that enhancements of the hydrocyclone performance go hand in hand with improving the environmental footprint of the equipment.

By reducing bypass returning to the mill, fewer fines are returned to the mill in a closed-circuit milling process, thus reducing the need for energy to be used to further process particles that are already small enough to move on to the next stage.

As a hydrocyclone that can make a finer separation, the Cavex® 2 650 model can operate at a lower pressure for further energy savings or a higher feed density for water savings while maintaining the existing cut size from the hydrocyclone.

The Cavex® 2 650 hydrocyclone delivers significant benefits to mining customers including an increase in operational and circuit capacity of up to 30%. It can be equipped with Synertrex®-enabled monitoring system which can detect roping or blockage conditions in advance for continuous, efficient operation of the hydrocyclone.