Mineral

Processing
 CONTENTS
Introduction
Size reduction
Size control
Enrichment
Upgrading
Materials handling
Wear in operation
Operation and environment
Process systems
Conclusion
References
 INTRODUCTION
• Mineral processing, art of treating crude ores and
mineral products in order to separate the valuable
minerals from the waste rock, or gangue. It is the
first process that most ores undergo after mining in
order to provide a more concentrated material for
the procedures of extractive metallurgy. The primary
operations are comminution and concentration, but
there are other important operations in a modern
mineral processing plant, including sampling and
analysis and dewatering.
A SIMPLIFIED FLOW CHART FOR ORE DRESSING

5
 Comminution
In order to separate the valuable components of an ore from
the waste rock, the minerals must be liberated from their
interlocked state physically by comminution. As a rule,
comminution begins by crushing the ore to below a certain size
and finishes by grinding it into powder, the ultimate fineness of
which depends on the fineness of dissemination of the desired
mineral.
 STEPS IN
COMMINUTION
S. No Process Size reduction

1. Explosive shattering Infinite size to 1 m

2. Primary crushing 1m – 100 mm

3. Secondary crushing 100 mm- 10 mm

4. Coarse grinding 10 mm- 1 mm

5. Fine grinding 1 mm- 100 microns
5. Very fine grinding 100 microns – 10 microns

6. Superfine grinding 10 microns- 1 micron

Size reduction/Comminution Process :

extremely energy-intensive .
5 % of all electricity generated is used in size reduction .
Efficiency of size reduction : 1 %.
Blasting can be described as the first stage of comminution carried out in the mine site in
order to remove ores from their natural beds. 12
 Size reduction
It is done by two major methods as
1. Crushing and Screening – it is the first controlled size reduction stage
In the process.
2. Grinding – Size reduced by grinding like blow 5-20mm.

Size control
Neither crushers nor grinding mills are very precise when it comes to
the correct sizing of the end products. The reason is to find partly in
the variation of the mineral crystals compounds (hard-soft, abrasive –
non abrasive), partly in the design and performance of the equipment.
Size control is the tool for improvement of the size fractions in the
process stages and in the final products.
Crushing
Some ores occur in nature as mixtures of discrete mineral
particles, such as gold in gravel beds and streams and diamonds
in mines. These mixtures require little or no crushing, since the
valuables are recoverable using other techniques (breaking up
placer material in log washers, for instance). Most ores, however,
are made up of hard, tough rock masses that must be crushed
before the valuable minerals can be released

Grinding
In this process stage, the crushed material can be further
disintegrated in a cylinder mill, which is a cylindrical container
built to varying length-to-diameter ratios, mounted with the axis
substantially horizontal, and partially filled with grinding bodies
(e.g., flint stones, iron or steel balls) that are caused to tumble,
under the influence of gravity, by revolving the container
 Concentration
Concentration involves the separation of valuable minerals from
the other raw materials received from the grinding mill. In large-
scale operations this is accomplished by taking advantage of the
different properties of the minerals to be separated. These
properties can be colour (optical sorting), density (gravity
separation), magnetic or electric (magnetic and electrostatic
separation), and physicochemical (flotation separation).
 Flotation separation
Flotation is the most widely used method for the
concentration of fine-grained minerals. It takes
advantage of the different physicochemical surface
properties of minerals—in particular, their wettability,
which can be a natural property or one artificially
changed by chemical reagents. By altering the
hydrophobic (water-repelling) or hydrophilic (water-
attracting) conditions of their surfaces, mineral particles
suspended in water can be induced to adhere to air
bubbles passing through a flotation cell or to remain in
the pulp.
 Enrichment

Separation Most value minerals (both metallic and industrial) are

priced by their purity. After liberation by size reduction and size
control all minerals are free to be separated from each other.
Depending on the properties of the individual minerals they can be
recovered by different methods of separation,

Dewatering
Concentrates and tailings produced by the methods outlined
above must be dewatered in order to convert the pulps to a
transportable state. In addition, the water can be recycled into the
existing water circuits of the processing plant, greatly reducing the
demand for expensive fresh water
 Materials handling
Without a proper set up for materials handling no processing
system will perform. Different process stages may be in various
locations, may have various feed conditions, are on different shift
cycles etc.
 Wear in operation
Filtration
Filtration is the separation of a suspension into a solid filter cake
and a liquid filtrate by passing it through a permeable filtering
material. Important factors in this process are the properties of
the suspension (e.g., size distribution, concentration), the
properties of the filtering materials (e.g., the width and shape of
pores), and the forces applied to the suspension. Filtration is
carried out in gravity filters (screens, dewatering bins), in
centrifugal filters (screen centrifuges), in vacuum filters (drum
cell filters, disk filters), or in pressure filters (filter presses). Such
devices make it possible to produce filter cakes containing 8 to
15 percent moisture.
 Operation
Thickening
In the process of thickening (also called sedimentation), the
solids in a suspension settle under the influence of gravity in a
tank and form a thick pulp. This pulp, and the clear liquid at the
top of the tank, can be removed continuously or intermittently. In
comparison with filtration, thickening offers the advantage of low
operation costs; on the other hand, it has the disadvantage of
leaving a higher moisture content in the pulp. For this reason,
the dewatering of pulps containing fine particles often involves a
combination of thickening and filtration. The thickening of finely
grained pulps is often aided by the use of flocculating agents
WASHED AND BENEFICIATED COAL:

These coals have undergone the process of coal

washing or coal beneficiation, resulting in value
addition to coal due to reduction in ash percentage.
Used in manufacturing of hard coke for steel making
Beneficiated and washed non-coking coal is used
mainly for power generation
Beneficiated non-coking coal is used by cement,
sponge iron and other industrial plants
Drying
The removal of water from solid materials by thermal
drying plays a significant role in modern mineral
processing. A great number of dryer types are
available. Convection dryers, employing a flow of hot
combustion gases to remove moisture from a pulp
stream, are the most common. To this type belong
rotary drum, conveyor, and fluidized-bed dryers.
CONCLUSION
 REFERENCES

 Principles of mineral processing By Maurice

Fuerstenau, Knneth N – 1991
 Mining geology by R N PArogyaswamya