Search Documents

By I. Gombköto

To sustain the growth of industrial production necessitates the increasing of the amount of processed mined raw and secondary materials. As a side effect of raw material production, the amount of tailings material, - coming from mineral processing operations ? increases as well. Using wet technology, these tailing materials are generally transported and stored with the water used for previous operations. This habit could lead to dangerous situations. Enough to remember the disasters had happened to the last decade, safe tailings operations need to remove as much water from the solid as possible. Environmental, technical and economical needs should meet, therefore using a technology combining these specific needs could be necessary. Paste technology was introduced generally into tailings operations at the last ten years, as an answer to the call of the above mentioned challenges, however there are still many questions to answer within the frame of using it. The Institute of Raw Materials Processing and Environmental Process Engineering of the University of Miskolc has been dealing with mechanical process engineering, especially by the support of the EU project TAILSAFE Contract nº EVG1-CT-2002-0066 and the NKFP 3A/068/2004 Hungarian fund extensive research has been carried out about paste technology. Different test methods and materials were applied. Tested tailings materials were as follows: different fly ashes from coal power plants from Pécs ? Hungary, Gyöngyös ? Hungary, Neyvil ? India, different Croatian ashes, hazardous waste incineration plant ashes from Dorog ? Hungary, different kind of sands from Hungary, fine glass sand from Fehérvárcsúrgó ? Hungary, flotation ore processing tailing from Gyöngyösoroszi ? Hungary. Different additives, as gypsum, bentonite and cement were tested as well. The applied test methods were as follows: physical material testing (laser sizer, piknometer, different microscopes), X-ray diffraction analysis, settling columns, the three measuring pipes tube viscometer (16~27 mm pipe diameter), a hydraulic test loop with different pumps (40~53 mm pipe diameter, 0.2~4 m/s average slurry velocity range, 0%~52 % volumetric concentration range), rotational viscometer, Cassagrande yield locus tester and the slump cone test. This paper summarizes and systematizes the results of the aforementioned research as well as reports about the developed paste pipe transport design method based on the fine suspension ? coarse mixture model. The paper also reports about a systematic experimental series with different materials to establish criteria when high concentration suspensions behave like paste.

Jan 1, 2014

By M. Maldonado

A flotation bank is a serial arrangement of cells. How to optimally operate a bank remains a challenge. This article reviews three reported strategies: air profiling, mass-pull (froth velocity) profiling and Peak Air Recovery (PAR) profiling. These are all ways of manipulating the recovery profile down a bank, which may be the property being exploited. Mathematical analysis has shown that a flat cell-by-cell recovery profile maximizes the separation of two floatable minerals for a given target bank recovery when the relative floatability is constant down the bank. Available bank survey data are analyzed with respect to recovery profiling. Possible variations on recovery profile to minimize entrainment are discussed.

Sep 1, 2012

By Di Liu, Yongjun Peng

"It was identified that clay minerals adversely affect fine coal flotation through slime coatings. In the study, it was interesting to find that an anionic polymer dispersant, lignosulfonate, successfully mitigated the negative effect of clay minerals in coal flotation using fresh water, but in saline water, it exacerbated coal flotation.In order to understand the mechanisms underpinning the different behaviour of lignosulfonate in coal flotation using fresh and saline water, the adsorption isotherm, and dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements were conducted in this study. While DLS monitored the molecular conformation change (swelling or shrinking) of the polymer in fresh and saline water, adsorption isotherms enabled polymer adsorbed amount on clay and coal mineral surfaces to be determined. It was found that lignosulfonate adsorbed on the coal and clay mineral surfaces providing effective electrostatic repulsions and resulting in a mitigation of clay minerals from coal surfaces in deionised water. In the presence of saline water, however, polymer molecular conformation changed. Polymer molecules were compressed and adsorbed in form of aggregates. The adsorption amount of lignosulfonate on clay minerals increased in saline water. A low dosage of lignosulfonate could not provide sufficient electrosteric repulsion to disperse clay minerals. Moreover, the high adsorption amount of the polymer on coal and clay surfaces led to a more hydrophilic coal surface, and coal flotation was therefore depressed in saline water. This study provides a new insight into understanding the role of anionic polymeric dispersants in mineral flotation using different quality water."

Jan 1, 2014

By Y. Y. Zhou

This paper introduces the application of CRIMM high-gradient magnetic separator in refinement of feldspar powders as well as the supporting technical outfits needed by the refining process with the high-gradient magnetic separator as main equipment. It could reduce the content of Fe2O3 to 0.03% with a deferrization rate of 85.88% from the feldspar raw ore containing 0.17% Fe2O3by using the above refining technology, producing an ultrapure feldspar product.

Jan 1, 2014

By Gülay Bulut, Ünzile Yenial

"Water composition has a significant effect on flotation. A better understand the role of water composition in flotation is very important for process quality and performance. Based on source of process water, the concentrations of the dissolved ions, hardness, contaminants and residual composition of reagents can varied in the process water. The various water resources employed during lead and zinc flotation caused activation, depression or selectivity effects on minerals due to the presence of different ions in solution. Metal ions in these water resources were adsorbed on the ore, whilst ions associated with gangue minerals were released into the flotation pulp.This paper includes a research for the effect of different water compositions on lead and zinc sulphide flotation. Experiments were carried out five types of water such as tap water, recycling water, tailing dam water, underground mine water and sea water. The ore sample was obtained from Esan Balikesir-Balya mine. The mineralogical study of ore sample shows that it contains mainly galena, sphalerite, pyrite, hematite, quartz, diopside, epidote, calcite, and chlorite. It is found that recycling water and tailing dam water has a positive effect on recovery of lead and zinc minerals and detrimental effect on content of both minerals. This result may explain with remaining reagents in these waters. Underground mine water and tap water gave nearly the same recoveries of zinc. Sea water affects the recovery lead and zinc negatively."

Jan 1, 2014

By John Ralston, Stephen Grano, Yongjun Peng, Daniel Fornasiero

"A specially designed mill which allowed the control of pH throughout grinding was used to study the effect of grinding conditions on galena flotation and galena separation from pyrite. The changes occurring on the mineral surface during grinding were investigated by EDTA extraction and ToF-SIMS measurements.Galena flotation and galena separation from pyrite were strongly dependent on the type and amount of oxidation species produced on galena and pyrite surfaces under different grinding conditions. Iron oxidation species depressed both galena and pyrite flotation, whilst lead oxidation species activated pyrite flotation but had little effect on galena flotation. Optimum galena flotation and galena selectivity against pyrite were achieved by selecting grinding conditions that enabled lead and iron oxidation production to be controlled.Grinding conditions had a large effect on the flotation of the galena particles of different sizes. Flotation of fine galena particles (-10 µm) was depressed by iron oxidation species derived from the grinding media. Chromium grinding medium decreased the production of iron oxidation species and therefore increased the flotation of fine galena particles."

Jan 1, 2003

By Chuanyao Sun, Yang Yu, Zhen Guo Song, Wei. Ming’An

"Carbonate minerals are very important mineral source of extracting metal, radioactive element and rare earth elements. Furthermore,some carbonate minerals, such as calcite and dolomite, are common and important components of sediments and sedimentary rocks. Many flotation processes involve the separation of valuable minerals with carbonate minerals. So it is of great significance to the flotation theory and industrial practice to investigate the flotation behaviors of carbonate minerals. As regulators, metal ions play a major role in minerals flotation. The study of influence law of metal ions on minerals flotation is helpful to eliminate or utilize the effect of metal ions. In this study, calcite and smithsonite laboratory scale flotation, surface analysis and zeta potential determination in the presence of Fe(II) ion were performed to investigate the effect of Fe(II) on carbonate flotation. The results show that Fe(?) depresses the flotation of calcite and smithsonite. The depression effect of Fe species on calcite and calamine flotation can be improved with the increase of Fe(?) concentration. The zeta potential measurements and surface analysis show the existence of iron hydroxide products on mineral surface, which may be link to carbonate site instead of exchanging with calcium on the mineral surface. Fe species on the mineral surface inhibit the interaction between the reagents and calcite/smithsonite through the formation of surface precipitation coating on the calcite/smithsonite surface when the Fe(?) concentration is higher."

Jan 1, 2014

By I. I. Beloglazov, G. A. Iusupov, A. Ju. Feoktistov

"The aim of this paper is to study the numerical modeling of the crushing process in a jaw crusher with complex motion jaws using Discrete Element Method (DEM). The main goals are to ensure the conformity of numerical simulation results to the experimental data, optimize the operating modes and the crusher design and develop automated verification and calibration methodology. It is offered to use automated selection of mathematical model parameters using large- or laboratory-scale experiments instead of deriving parameters from conventional intensive material tests (e.g. drop-weight test). Experimental data were obtained from a large-scale crusher designed and manufactured by the company “Mekhanobr-Tekhnika”. Both jaws have their drive shafts located asymmetrically; one jaw is driven in the upper part, the second at the base. The crushing process involves fragmentation of single smoothed rectangular granite particles of the same weight. During the experiment, the required parameters such as particle size distribution were obtained for further computer simulations. Based on the obtained experimental data, the Rocky DEM model was built. Simulation breakage parameters were calibrated using automated parameter selection methodology based on multiple set of parameter-controlled simulations. A good correlation of the experimental data and numerical simulation data was obtained. The methodology in combination with well-known capabilities of simulation modeling will help reduce the research time in the development of new mineral processing equipment.INTRODUCTION Preparation of rock mass for enrichment includes the power-consuming processes of crushing and grinding. Initial rock mass crushing is performed by means of drilling and blasting operations. To reduce the average size of a rock piece, primary crushers, mostly jaw crushers, are further applied. The advantages of the jaw crusher are simple design, easy maintenance and repair. One of the drawbacks is large oscillating masses and, thus, high power consumption during operation (55 - 200 kW). Jaw crushing simulation will help optimize the crushing process and improve further rock transportation and processing performance."

Jan 1, 2018

By S. Fiore, M. C. Zanetti, C. Clerici

The processes and fluxes of a cast iron foundry plant located in the North of Italy were analyzed in order to determine the amount and kind of wastes produced from the different activities. The main fractions are the molding sands, furnace muds and powders coming from the dust abatement plant, the exhaust lime, the furnace refractory, the metallic shotting and the sludges and powders coming from the dust abatement plant of molding lines for a total production equal to 800 t/d. All wastes were sampled and particle-size and chemically characterized to evaluate the best recycling or reuse solutions. Wastes were sieved and divided in three categories according to the particle-size dimensions: below 0.1 mm, between 0.1 and 0.6 mm and above 0.6 mm. The fraction above 0.6 mm dimension underwent magnetic separation to recover and quantify the potentially available iron fraction. The fraction between 0.1 mm and 0.6 mm was chemically characterized in order to understand if it could be fed to the sand regeneration plant. The below 0.1 mm fraction was characterized to evaluate the following recycling and reuse solutions: additive for molding sands and/or raw material for the concrete industry.

Jan 1, 2003

By Gus Van Weert, Samuel A. Bolorunduro, David B. Dreisingerm

"As deposits of high-grade base metal sulphides become depleted, attention must be focused on the treatment of complex sulphides, which contain significant fractions of precious metals such as gold and silver. Acid pressure oxidation is a promising process for these materials and the recovery of silver and gold will improve the economy of the process. Gold can be recovered from the oxidised residues, however, silver is incorporated into the jarosite specie and the cyanidation of the resulting residue yields very low recovery.Pressure oxidation of various complex sulphides was carried out at 110-150°C in sulphate media with additions of potassium iodide under conditions similar to industrial autoclaving. The resulting residues were subjected to cyanidation. High recovery of silver, up to 98%, was achieved because its incorporation into lead-hydronium jarosite during the pressure oxidation was minimised, while its deportment into the cyanide-soluble silver iodide was favoured. Silver recovery decreased slightly at high temperatures (140° and 150°C) because of the enhanced stability and kinetics of lead-hydronium jarosite, but this could be overcome by increasing acidity and iodide concentration of the autoclave slurry."

Jan 1, 2003

By Wolfgang Öfner

Many technical processes also yield dusty residues which usually contain appreciable amounts of valuable matter. Often they also accumulate substances detrimental to the process. Dumping them entirely in landfills wastes raw material and causes high disposal costs, but recycling them without prior treatment is often not feasible. Physical separation processes are preferable because of their rather low energy demand. In order to develop such treatment systematically, the residues must be characterized properly. The technique for such a characterization is taken from mineral processing: perfect fractionation according to continuous properties of the particles supplemented with chemical analysis are used for plotting the Henry-Reinhardt chart. This represents the benchmark for assessing actual separation processes and tests. Their results are compared in terms of ?selectivity? and plotted in the kappa chart. In this paper, Henry-Reinhardt chart and kappa chart are applied to several different types of residues from iron and steel production and show their potential for being upgraded before reutilization in the production process. This approach is suitable for virtually all dusty residues from other industrial processes as well. Keywords: residue, dust,iron and steel, process development, Henry-Reinhardt chart, kappa chart

Sep 1, 2012

By Hans-Åke Häggblad, Bertil I. Pålsson, Jan Stener, Kent Tano, Andreas Berggren, Pär Jonsén

Numerical modelling of grinding in tumbling mills is traditionally done with the discrete element method (DEM). The grinding balls are then represented by DEM particles and the mill structure is considered rigid. To include more physical phenomena several numerical methods can be combined. One important improvement is to include the mill structure response, using the finite element method (FEM). The interaction between charge and lining can then be studied in detail. The pulp can also be included using a particle-based continuum method e.g. smoothed particle method (SPH). The strength of SPH lies in modelling of free surface flows and very large deformations and it is suited to model simultaneous fluid and granular flow. Still, the coarse particles (grinding balls) in the charge are suitable to be model using DEM. Each of these methods has their strength and weaknesses, but combined they can successfully mimic the main features of the charge movement. With these numerical tools the complex interaction between the different components of the grinding process; pulp, charge, lining and the mechanical behaviour of the mill, can be studied together. This work will present novel numerical approaches to model, simulate and validate charge behaviour in tumbling mills. These numerical models give possibilities to better understand the physical and mechanical behaviour of particulate material systems during grinding in a tumbling mill. This is important in order to develop and optimise future high-capacity grinding circuits and save energy.

Jan 1, 2014

By L. Stamenov, H. Bouzahzah, S. Gaydardzhiev, D. Naumov

"The Chelopech epithermal arsenic bearing high-sulphidation, copper-gold deposit located in Bulgaria is often referred as the richest European gold deposit currently under exploitation. Key points from the flotation circuit of the processing plant have been sampled and selected physicochemical parameters measured. Plant survey has followed with selected samples being submitted to chemical and mineral liberation analysis (MLA). Quantitative analysis has enabled to link the flotation response of the main copper bearing minerals with the physiochemical parameters (Eh, DO, EDTA extractable Cu and Fe) being measured. Data from mineral liberation analysis have highlighted an important process-relevant information explaining the variable floatability in the various granulometric classes.The low chalcopyrite recovery could be linked to the non-sufficient amount of dissolved oxygen measured in the copper selective flotation circuit. Given the finely-disseminated copper bearing minerals, the observed copper losses inside the flotation could be also explained by the insufficient degree of liberation of the mineral grains. Suggestions for improvement in metallurgical recovery are therefore proposed.INTRODUCTIONThe Chelopech deposit is a high sulphidation (HS) volcanic-hosted epithermal gold-copper one (Bonev et al., 2002; Kouzmanov et al, 2009; Strashimirov, et al. 2002). It is considered as one of the largest and economically most important ore deposits in Bulgaria, and often is referred to Europe’s largest currently mined gold resource. It is located in the Srednogorie zone which falls within the central sector of the extensive Tethyan–Eurasian copper belt formed during Mesozoic–Cenozoic time along the southern margin of Eurasia. The Srednogorie zone has the features of a subduction-related, Late Cretaceous island arc, with development of a calk-alkaline to sub-alkaline volcano-plutonic magmatism and associated hydrothermal ore deposits (Bonev et al., 2002).Ore mineralisation occurs as veins, mineralised breccia, and massive sulphide replacements and disseminations. Three mineralisation stages have been identified at Chelopech deposit. An early pyrite–marcasite mineralisation (stage I), characterised by disseminated to massive pyrite followed and partly brecciated by enargite– luzonite and tennantite–chalcopyrite–bornite (stage II) mineralisation. The gold is met in ores belonging to the stage II. Sphalerite and galena veins characterise stage III, best developed below and adjacent to the pyrite–enargite– chalcopyrite ore bodies. Advanced argillic altered volcanoclastic rocks commonly host this mineralisation (Chambefort and R. Moritz, 2014)."

Jan 1, 2018

By Peter N. Holtham, Geoffrey J. Lyman, Matthew S. Brennan, Vijay Subramanian, Rui X. Rong, Tim Napier-Munn

Studies of the dense medium and classifying cyclone have been conducted using the Fluent computational fluid dynamics code. Experimental measurements of the segregation of medium in a DM cyclone by gamma-ray tomography and the performance of a novel classifying cyclone design have been used to test and interpret the 3D CFD predictions. The predictions of the CFD models were generally plausible, though more work is required to incorporate turbulent mixing of the slurry in the cyclone. The benefits of the novel cyclone design were explained by the model in terms of conditions favouring reduction of short-circuiting at the vortex finder, and the removal of the air core from the wall at the apex. Work is continuing.

Jan 1, 2003

By Erico Tabosa, Kym Runge, Peter Holtham

"The distribution of turbulence in an industrial scale mechanical flotation cell and its effect on flotation kinetics was studied using a fully instrumented 3m³ cell. The cell was operated at a copper concentrator in Australia with different combinations of airflow rates, impeller speeds and sizes and cell aspect ratio providing a wide range of hydrodynamic conditions. An analysis of the overall flotation cell performance showed that the overall copper recoveries were very similar for the conditions tested. However, by decoupling pulp effects from froth effects it was possible to evaluate whether the changes made affected the pulp zone and/or froth zone responses. The analysis showed that the overall recovery has the potential to be up to 7% higher, if not limited by froth recovery. The cell hydrodynamics were characterised by the overall energy dissipation rate and, to understand the distribution of turbulence within the cell, localised measurements were made using a piezoelectric vibration sensor. By comparing the metallurgical performance of the cell with the different hydrodynamic conditions it was found that the collection zone flotation rate constant was not directly related to overall energy dissipation, as is commonly observed at laboratory scale, where energy is usually only changed by varying impeller speed. In this study, energy dissipation rate was varied using not only impeller speed, but also the size of the impeller and the cell aspect ratio. In these circumstances, the best correlation was found to be between the collection zone flotation rate constant and the distribution of turbulence, i.e. the size of the turbulent zone."

Jan 1, 2014

By Choi Sang-Ken, Chung Hun-Saeng, Kim Byoung-Gon, Park Chong-Lyuck

Fine grinding of crystalline graphite was conducted using a dry attrition mill with a vacuum system to investigate the characteristics of size reduction. Low pressure and high temperature conditions in the grinding mill were found to greatly improve the efficiency of the size reduction of graphite. Natural flaky graphite of .100 mesh was ground into sub-micron sizes, then over 90% of the product were able to be reduced below 1?without disrupting their crystallinity in a short period of time. Reducing the atmospheric pressure in the grinding environment promotes the removal of chemical species such as oxygen and water molecules adsorbed on the graphite particle, resulting in effective size reduction while maintaining the crystallinity of graphite.

Jan 1, 2003

By F. L. Mentg

The utilization of acid leaching tailings was studied. It is obvious that the Fe in acid leaching tailings can be leached into solutions as Fe2+. In this paper, the influence of conditions, including the concentration of ferrous sulfate, pH, temperature and velocity of air flow was investigated. The optimum conditions for preparing seed crystal are as follows: the concentration of ferrous sulfate is 20 g/L; pH is 9.5~10; reaction temperature is 10~20?; velocity of air flow is 0.4m3/h. The optimum conditions for preparing iron oxide red are as follows: the concentration of ferrous sulfate is 5 g/L; reaction temperature is 80~85?; velocity of air flow is 0.13m3/h. At last, the product of iron oxide red could be prepared by ammonia method.

Jan 1, 2014

At times the phosphate industry, in Florida, encounters phosphate rock that gives lower than expected P2O5 recovery in the rougher plant section. The drop in recovery is typically 10% and as much as 30% or more. Variations in feed quality from day to day, shift to shift and even from drag-line to drag line, represent a challenge to the beneficiation plant operators and reagents? suppliers. Therefore, this characterization study has been initiated to identify the reasons for the differences in flotation behavior of such feeds. The study involves many samples to cover such variations. The characterization work includes: ? Mineralogical and chemical analysis; ? Size, shape, surface roughness and porosity analysis; ? Surface charge and surface contamination with other phases (minerals); ? Clay content and its relationship to phosphate and silica particles. The results correlated with flotation data and adsorption density measurements clearly establish the statistically significant variability in characteristic features that influence flotation response. This article discusses results from the above listed studies. On the basis of the obtained data, recommendations of practical approaches to overcome the problem of feed variability in phosphate flotation plants are delineated.

Jan 1, 2014

By R. C. Miranda

The purpose of this work is to present ?state of the art? mass balances closing strategies in ore treatment plants. It presents a brief history of difficulties and challenges ahead. The current methodology is based on usage of an expert system, which seizes and filters the plant data, analyzes situations of equipment stops and mostly instruments failures. It is still possible to internally create a strategy to check the data of an instrument failure. The system is coupled to software with a Lagrangian model of mass balance closure that receives the pre-treated data. Thus, the data goes through filtering and reconciling processes to generate a reliable mass balance of the ore treatment plant. This made possible to obtain a system that is able to tell the real productivity of a ore plant through reliable mass balances. Residence times on equipments are critical to the balance, thus, they require good logic to eliminate errors due to the characteristics of non-steady state. Among the next challenges is the inclusion of a ?soft sensor? as a replacement of an instrument required for mass balance closure.

Sep 1, 2012

By Anatoly Usov

The detailed researches of a broad circle of problems connected to development of the electric pulse method destruction materials (EPD) of a various nature and area of use are executed. The electrical and power characteristics of process, physical fundamentals of selectivity of a breakdown and destruction are investigated, the device of electric pulse (EP) disaggregation and ?omminution of materials are developed, the technological efficiency of disintegration of industrial minerals estimated. Due to its technological advantages, the EPD could have a great potential in minerals mining and processing technologies. Low specific power and weight-and-size characteristics of EP installations based on the existing out-of-date electric equipment are at present the main reasons hindering the effective application of the method in mining and processing technologies. The main studies carried out in Russia in the field of electro technical equipment development for EP technology are presented. The pulse capacitors service life affects greatly the economic efficiency of the process because the capacitors cost accounts for a considerable, and in some cases, the most part of the operational costs. Determined and analyzed in the study are the ways which could significantly improve the specific characteristics of high voltage pulse generators (VPG), such as to use of high-frequency voltage transformation to develop a charger; to use pulse transformers (PT) with iron magnetic circuits made of materials characterized by high magnetic permeability, in pulse generating circuits; as well as to use special ways which could produce voltage pulses with a short front. The experiments have proved the possibility to adapt these technological solutions for EP devices, and a further strategy of the EP technologies development and application has been suggested on this base. Keywords: electric pulse disaggregation, electric pulse installation, charger battery, high voltage pulse generator

Sep 1, 2012