MINERAL DRESSING

• The first process most ores undergo after they leave the mine is mineral
dressing (processing), also called ore preparation, milling, and ore dressing
or ore beneficiation.
• Ore dressing is a process of mechanically separating the grains of ore
minerals from the gangue minerals, to produce a concentrate (enriched
portion) containing most of the ore minerals and a tailing (discard)
containing the bulk of the gangue minerals.
•
• Since most ore minerals are usually finely disseminated and intimately
associated with gangue minerals, the various minerals must be broken apart
(freed) or “liberated” before they can be collected in separate products.
Therefore, the first part in any ore dressing process will involve the crushing
and grinding (which is also known by a common name called
“comminution”) of the ore to a point where each mineral grain is practically
free.
Comminution
Crushing and grinding are usually carried out in a sequence of operations by
which the lump size is reduced step by step. There are 3 stages of crushing and
2 stages of grinding.

1. Primary Crushing (coarse crushing): In primary crushing, ore or run-of-mine

ore (up to 1 m in size) is crushed down to about 10 cm and it is done in a
jaw or gyratory crusher.
2. Secondary Crushing (intermediate crushing): In this case, ore is crushed
from 10 cm to less than 1 – 2 cm size; for this purpose jaw, cone or roll
crushers are used. These secondary crushers consume more power than
primary crushers.
3. Tertiary Crushing (fine crushing): By tertiary crushers ore is crushed from
1 – 2 cm to less than 0.5 cm. Short head cone crushers, roll crushers,
hammer mills can be used for this purpose.
 PRIMARY
CRUSHERS
Primary crushers are heavy-duty
machines, used to reduce run-of-mine
(ROM) ore down to a size suitable for
transport and for feeding the secondary
crushers or mills.
There are two main types of primary
crushers in metalliferous operations: jaw
and gyratory crushers, although impact
crushers have limited use as primaries
and will be considered separately.

Scalping is typically associated with jaw

crusher circuits and can be included to
maximize throughput.
 Cone Crushers (Secondary)
• The cone crusher is a modified gyratory crusher, and accordingly many of the same terms
including gape, set, and throw, apply. The essential difference is that the shorter spindle of
the cone crusher is not suspended, as in the gyratory, but is supported in a curved, universal
bearing below the gyratory head or cone.
• Power is transmitted from the source to the countershaft through a V-belt or direct drive. The
countershaft has a bevel pinion pressed and keyed to it, and drives the gear on the eccentric
assembly.
• The eccentric has a tapered, offset bore and provides the means whereby the head and main
shaft follow an eccentric path during each cycle of rotation.
• Since a large gape is not required, the crushing shell or bowl flares outwards, which allows
for the swell of broken ore by providing an increasing cross sectional (annular) area toward
the discharge end. The cone crusher is therefore an excellent arrested crusher.
 Roll Crushers
• Although not widely used in the minerals industry, roll crushers can be effective in handling friable,
sticky, frozen, and less abrasive feeds, such as limestone, coal, chalk, gypsum, phosphate, and soft iron
ores.
• Roll crusher operation is fairly straightforward: the standard spring rolls consist of two horizontal
cylinders that revolve toward each other
• The gap (closest distance between the rolls) is determined by shims which cause the spring-loaded roll
to be held back from the fixed roll.
• Unlike jaw and gyratory crushers, where reduction is progressive by repeated nipping action as the
material passes down to the discharge, the crushing process in rolls is one of single pressure.
The two stages of grinding are:

• Coarse Grinding: Rod mills are generally used as coarse grinding machines. They are
capable of taking feed as large as 50 mm and making a product as fine as 300 microns.

• Fine Grinding: Fine grinding, which is the final stage of comminution, is performed in ball
mills using steel balls as the grinding medium. The ball mill, after feeding 0.5 mm material
may give a product that is less than 100 microns. Grinding is usually done wet.

The principle purposes of grinding are:

• To obtain the correct degree of liberation in mineral processing.

• To increase the specific surface area of the valuable minerals for hydrometallurgical
treatment; i.e. leaching.
• Mineral processing combines a series of distinct unit operations. The flowsheet shows
diagrammatically the sequence of unit operations in the plant.
 A simple flowsheet of a mineral processing

plant Ore

Crushers
(+) Oversize

Screens
(-) Undersize

Grinding
(+) Oversize

Classification
(-) Undersize

Concentration

Concentrate Tailing
Concentration
• The second fundamental (main) operation in mineral processing, after the release, or liberation, of the valuable
minerals from the gangue minerals, is the separation of these values from the gangue, i.e. concentration.

• Concentration is usually accomplished by utilizing some specific difference in physical (or chemical) properties of
the metal and gangue compound in the ore.

In concentration the following terms are used:

• Head is the feed to a concentrating system.

• Concentrate is defined as the valuable mineral(s) separated from ore undergoing a specific treatment.

• Tailing is the fraction of ore rejected in a separating process. It is usually the valueless portion, i.e. discard or
waste.

• Middlings are the particles of locked valuable mineral and gangue, i.e. liberation has not been attained. Further
liberation can be achieved by further comminution.
Physical Concentration Methods

• Separation dependent on optical and radioactive properties of minerals,

i.e. hand pickling, optical sorting, radioactive sorting, etc.
• Separation dependent on specific gravity (density) difference of minerals,
i.e. heavy-media separation, gravity concentration by use of tables, jigs,
cones, etc.
• Separation utilizing the different surface properties (i.e. surface
chemistry) of the minerals, i.e. froth flotation, etc.
• Separation dependent on magnetic properties of the minerals, i.e. low
and high, dry and wet magnetic separation, etc.
• Separation dependent on electrical conductivity properties of the
minerals, i.e. electrostatic separation, etc.
PRETREATMENT PROCESSES
• Minerals recovered from ores are not always in the optimum chemical or physical state for conversion to
metals.
• Oxides are more conveniently reduced to metals than sulfides, or the metal might be more readily
leached from the ore if it were present as a sulfate, a chloride, or an oxide.
• Chemical conversion to the desired species often is an integral segment of the extractive process. Sulfide
ores or concentrates, for example, usually are heated in an oxidized atmosphere (roasted) to convert
them to an oxide or sulfate.
• The physical state of an ore may be too fine for charging to a process. Fine ores often are agglomerated by
sintering prior to charging to a blast furnace, the principal smelting unit for lead and iron.
• In the case of iron ore, pelletizing is another very important agglomeration process that has achieved
commercial adaptation in the iron and steel industry.
• In the sections below, the following pretreatment processes will be explained:

• Drying
• Calcination
• Roasting
• Agglomeration
Drying
• Drying usually means the removal of mechanically held water or moisture from concentrate, or
other solid materials by evaporation, i.e. expensive operation, usually done in a drying furnace
(fixed or fluidized bed, or kiln) and usually accomplished by passing hot combustion gases
through or above the substance.
• Drying may be accomplished either at atmospheric pressure by heating the substance above
the normal boiling point of water, or, under reduced pressure where the atmospheric pressure
is brought below the vapor pressure of water at the temperature in question.

H2O(l) ↔ H2O(g) ∆H298 K = +10.5 Kcal / gram-mole (Endothermic process)

• Therefore, in addition to the heat needed to bring the substance to the drying temperature, the
heat of evaporation must be supplied at that temperature.

Moisture Determination
Take a grab sample weighing 100 to 1000 grams or more (It should include representative
portions from the top, bottom and center of the car of ore or concentrate)
 Sample

Weigh the Sample

Put into Drying Oven

Dry @ 105C

Weigh again

Determine the Loss in Weight

Calculate % Moisture
% Moisture = {(wet weight - dry weight) / wet weight} * 100
Calcination

• Calcination is the thermal treatment of an ore or a concentrate to effect

its decomposition and the elimination of a volatile product, usually CO2,
water vapor, or other gases.

• Therefore, by contrast with drying, calcination involves the removal of

H2O, CO2, etc., which are chemically bound as e.g. hydrates or carbonates.
Lost Lost

Material Free water Chemically bound H2O,CO2 Completely dehydrated

and calcined material

Drying Calcination

Increasing Temperature

Tcalcination >> Tdrying

Examples of calcination reactions:

CaCO3 ↔ CaO + CO2 ∆H298 K= +42.5 kcal/gram-mole T ≥ 900 C

This calcination reaction is endothermic. It is more endothermic than drying.

MgCO3 ↔ MgO + CO2 @ about 1700 – 1800°C

• MgO produced is called periclase. It is a stable crystalline structure (with no

hydration or shrinkage), used as a refractory

2Al(OH)3 ↔ Al2O3 + 3H2O @ about 1000°C chemically combined water is

driven off.
Furnaces
• Shaft furnace – For the calcination of coarse limestone
• Rotary kiln – For the calcination of materials with mixed particle size or
lumps which disintegrate during the process
• Fluidized bed – For materials of uniform, small particle size Fuels used in
calcination furnaces are gas, oil, coke, pulverized coal, etc
Types of Roasting
• Oxidizing roast
• Volatilizing roast
• Chloridizing roast
• Sulfating roast
• Magnetizing roast
• Carburizing roast
• Sinter or Blast roasting
Types of Furnaces for Roasting
• Development sequence:
• Stationary heaps-old days
• Hand rabbled furnaces-later development Multiple hearth furnaces -long time
used for roasting Flash or Suspension roasting furnaces
• Fluidized bed roasting furnaces
 Fluidized-bed roasting
• The ore particles are roasted while suspended in an
upward stream of gas

• As in the suspension roaster, the reaction rates for

desulfurization are more rapid than in the older
multiple-hearth processes.

• Fluidized-bed roasters operate under a pressure

slightly higher than atmospheric and at
temperatures averaging 1000°C (1800°F).

• In the fluidized-bed process, no additional fuel is

required after ignition has been achieved.
 Steps observed during roasting process
Stage-1
• When the gas flow rate is very low, and the ore bed is porous,
the gas permeates the bed without disturbing the ore particles
• Pressure drop across the bed is proportional to flow rate

Stage-2
• Gas velocity increses, the bed expands upwards due to the
effect of the drag forces exerted by gas stream
• The pressure drop across the bed depends on the gas velocity
Stage-3
• When gas velocity further increases a stage is
reached
• Pressure drop = wt. of the particle per unit area of
the bed
• Particles remain individually suspended and offer
less resistance to gas flow

Stage-4
• Further increase in gas velocity lead to continued
expansion of the bed
• Results in increase in interparticle distance
• Pressure drop across bed continues to decrease as
the gas velocity increases
Stage-5
• Finally, the expansion of the bed is independent of
gas velocity
• Outcoming gas stream appears in the form of
bubbles bursting on the surface of the bed which
looks like well stirred boiling liquid
• In this condition the bed is said to be fluidized.
• The fluidized bed has an apparent density distinctly
different from the density of the solid and is capable
of flowing like a liquid.
 Advantages
• High energy efficiency because it can be autogenously operated

• Useful in recovery of sulphur because the gas that it produces has

high SO2 content

• Ideal for roasting of oxide ores because the oxidizing reactions that
take place during roasting is highly exothermic.
e.g. Pyrite FeS2, Millerite NiS, etc.
Agglomeration
• When the particle size of an ore or concentrate is too small for use in a later
stage of treatment, i.e. in the blast furnace, it must be reformed into lumps of
appropriate size and strength that is agglomerated. Agglomeration is used
particularly if the ore is to be smelted in a shaft furnace where fine-grained
material would plug up the gas passage, i.e. decrease gas permeability.
Types of agglomeration
• Sintering
• Pelletizing
• Briquetting
• Nodulizing

Below sintering and pelletizing of iron ores or concentrates are explained

Sintering
• Sintering may be defined as a process in which relatively coarse materials,
e.g. for iron ore concentrate –8mm + 0.15mm (100 mesh), are converted
into coarse agglomerates by partial melting and fusion. The sinter product
has a porous structure.
• Sintering is generally done by the use of a Dwight – Lloyd sintering
machine. Sectional-view of a Dwight – Lloyd sintering machine is given
below.
Pelletizing
Pellets are made by rolling critically moist finely divided material around in a
drum or in a rotating inclined disc. Below pelletizing of iron ore concentrate is
explained