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Overview of Mineral Processing Techniques

1) Mineral processing involves separating commercially valuable minerals from ore through techniques like crushing, grinding, screening, flotation, and dewatering. 2) The objectives of mineral processing are to eliminate unwanted materials, separate materials by size or structure, or selectively separate desired materials. Comminution, sizing, concentration, and dewatering are the main unit operations. 3) Comminution involves reducing the size of ore particles through crushing and grinding. Sizing separates particles by screen size. Concentration increases the percentage of valuable minerals through processes like flotation. Dewatering removes water from ore to facilitate further processing and transport.

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Er Manak Chand Saini
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376 views10 pages

Overview of Mineral Processing Techniques

1) Mineral processing involves separating commercially valuable minerals from ore through techniques like crushing, grinding, screening, flotation, and dewatering. 2) The objectives of mineral processing are to eliminate unwanted materials, separate materials by size or structure, or selectively separate desired materials. Comminution, sizing, concentration, and dewatering are the main unit operations. 3) Comminution involves reducing the size of ore particles through crushing and grinding. Sizing separates particles by screen size. Concentration increases the percentage of valuable minerals through processes like flotation. Dewatering removes water from ore to facilitate further processing and transport.

Uploaded by

Er Manak Chand Saini
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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  • Introduction to Mineral Processing
  • Overview of Mineral Processing
  • Scope and Objectives of Mineral Processing
  • Unit Operations in Mineral Processing
  • Ore Processing Flowsheets

1

Mineral processing
BY – MANAK CHAND SAINI
Department of mining
RAJ Engineering College
Jodhpur
mineral processing, also known as ore dressing, is the process of separating
commercially valuable minerals from their ores 2
Scope and Objectives of Mineral Processing

The mineral processing was either not carried out or was carried out in a very 3
crude manner, which required selective [Link] improvements in mineral
processing techniques, it has become possible to carry out the mining of low-grade
and complex ores employing bulk mining (mining of desired mineral along with
unwanted gangue at much lower cost).
In general, the scope of mineral processing is three fold. i.e.,
(a) elimination of undesired 'chemical species,
(b) elimination of undesired size or structure, or
(c) selective separation of desired material.
The first two are commonly “considered to be more important in mineral
processing
Unit operations
Mineral processing can involve four general types of unit operation: 4
• COMMINUTION – particle size reduction;
• SIZING – separation of particle sizes by screening or classification;
• CONCENTRATION by taking advantage of physical and surface
chemical properties; and
• DEWATERING – solid/liquid separation.

In all of these processes, the most important considerations are the


economics of the processes and this is dictated by the grade and
recovery of the final product
Comminution = break in small particles
Comminution is particle size reduction of materials. Comminution may be carried
out on either dry materials or slurries. Crushing and grinding are the two primary 5
comminution processes.

Crushing is normally carried out on "run-of-mine" ore, while grinding (normally


carried out after crushing) may be conducted on dry or slurried material.

In comminution, the size reduction of particles is done by three types of forces:


compression, impact and attrition. Compression and impact forces are extensively
used in crushing operations while attrition is the dominant force in grinding.

The primarily used equipment in crushing are-jaw crushers, gyratory crushers


and cone crushers whereas rod mills and ball mills, closed circuited with a
classifier unit, are generally employed for grinding purposes in a mineral
processing plant.
Sizing = separation of different size of particle
Sizing is the general term for separation of particles according to their size.
The simplest sizing process is screening, or passing the particles to be sized 6
through a screen or number of screens.

Screening equipment can include grizzlies,bar screens, wedge wire screens, radial
sieves, banana screens, multi-deck screens, vibratory screen, fine screens, flip
flop screens and wire mesh screens

An important factor in both comminution and sizing operations is the


determination of the particle size distribution of the materials being processed,
commonly referred to as particle size analysis. Many techniques for analyzing
particle size are used, and the techniques include both off-line analyses which
require that a sample of the material be taken for analysis and on-line techniques
that allow for analysis of the material as it flows through the process.
Concentration=increase of the % of the valuable mineral in the concentrate

There are a number of ways to increase the concentration of the wanted minerals: 7
in any particular case the method chosen will depend on the relative physical and
surface chemical properties of the mineral and the gangue.

Concentration is defined as the number of moles of a solute in a volume of the


solution.

In case of mineral processing concentration means the increase of the percentage


of the valuable mineral in the concentrate
DEWATERING
Dewatering is an important process in mineral processing. The purpose of 8
dewatering is to remove water absorbed by the particles which increases the pulp
density. This is done for a number of reasons, specifically, to enable ore handling
and concentrates to be transported easily, allow further processing to occur and
to dispose of the gangue. The water extracted from the ore by dewatering is
recirculated for plant operations after being sent to a water treatment plant. The
main processes that are used in dewatering include dewatering screens such as
Sepro-Sizetec Screens, sedimentation, filtering, and thermal drying. These
processes increase in difficulty and cost as the particle size decreases.
Simple flowsheet for ore processing
9
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Mineral processing BY – MANAK CHAND SAINI Department of mining RAJ Engineering College Jodhpur 1
2 mineral processing, also known as ore dressing, is the process of separating commercially valuable minerals (https://en.w
3 Scope and Objectives of Mineral Processing The mineral processing was either not carried out or was carried out in a very
4 Unit operations Mineral processing can involve four general types of unit operation: • COMMINUTION – particle size reducti
5 Comminution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comminution)= break in small particles Comminution is particle size reducti
6 Sizing = separation of different size of particle Sizing is the general term for separation of particles according to th
7 Concentration=increase of the % of the valuable mineral in the concentrate There are a number of ways to increase the conce
8 DEWATERING Dewatering is an important process in mineral processing. The purpose of dewatering is to remove water absorbe
9 Simple flowsheet for ore processing
10

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