Salt transport belt conveyors

Assuming that the salt transport in the Baltic Sea occurs as a Conveyor Belt consisting of the inflow of salt water over the sills into the deepwater pool of the Baltic Sea, which is mainly carried by the turbulent influx in the Belt Sea, the vertical salt flux through the halocline into the brackish surface water of the Baltic Sea, and the outflow through the Belt Sea by advecting brackish surface water with the outflowing freshwater surplus q. Then we have balance between stochastic salt inflow and advective salt outflow Sg. 

At some stage in the size-reduction process, the broken salt is transported to the surface. Belt conveyors are used in the crushing and screening operation. Various types of vehicles, suited to the characteristics of individual mines, deliver the salt to the primary crusher or the shafts, for hoisting to the surface. Vehicles include ffont-end loaders and diesel trucks. Low-profile end-loaders of relatively small capacity are used when roofs are low. Load-haul-dump (LHD) units, needing only one operator/driver, can collect, transport, and deliver salt to a crusher. 

SQM, as Eoote, initially selected a brine extraction location for its well field where the brine had the maximum potassium and the least sulfate for potash and lithium production, and later a location with the maximum sulfate content for potassium sulfate production (Fig. 1.57). Because of this the plants could initially use the simplest processes and have the lowest capital and operating costs. In the initial operation brine with up to 3400 ppm Li was pumped from the Salar in 40 wells, 28 m deep on a 200-500 m grid, which delivered up to 5280 m /hr of brine to the solar ponds. There were also 13 monitoring wells to follow any changes in the brine concentration and its depth from the surface. The ponds were lined with flexible PVC or reinforced hypalon membranes, and the brine flowed through the sections of the pond system in series. The initial salt ponds had an area of 1.16 million m followed by 3.36 million m for the sylvinite ponds, and later 1 million m of ponds were installed for lithium production. The plant employed 184 people, of which 120 were hired from the sparsely populated local area. Contractors were used to drill and maintain the weUs, harvest the salts, transport them to their respective stockpiles, and reclaim the sylvinite to feed the potash plant s conveyor belt. They also provided all of the miscellaneous trucking needed at the Salar, and transported the potash to Coya Sur or Maria Elena and the concentrated lithium chloride brine to the Salar de Carmen. SQM unloaded the brine and potash, and stacked the later material at its nitrate plants (Harben and Edwards, 1997). 

---