As a newcomer to the beneficiation industry, there will be a lot of knowledge to learn. Beneficiation is a significant science, including mineral processing methods, technologies, equipment, and beneficiation solutions. In this process, we will encounter common questions and answers about beneficiation. As a professional mining equipment manufacturer and mineral ores solution supplier, JXSC mineral summarizes some common questions and answers. Today we will introduce some knowledge about mineral beneficiation.
1.What is beneficiation?
Answer: The raw ore is processed to remove most of the gangue and harmful components in the raw ore so that the useful minerals can be enriched into concentrates for the next step. This processing process is called mineral processing.
2.What is the purpose and significance of mineral processing?
Answer: The purpose of beneficiation is to remove a large amount of gangue and harmful elements contained in the ore, to enrich useful minerals, or to separate various useful minerals that are symbiotic from each other to obtain a concentrate product of one or several useful minerals.
3. What are the commonly used beneficiation methods?
Answer: The beneficiation methods are mainly divided into two categories, namely physical beneficiation and chemical beneficiation, among which physical beneficiation includes magnetic separation method, gravity separation method, electrostatic beneficiation method, friction beneficiation method, particle size beneficiation method, shape beneficiation method, corona beneficiation method, and hand selection. Chemical beneficiation includes the flotation method (actual flotation is physical and chemical beneficiation), sintering method, leaching method (bacterial leaching and chemical leaching), amalgamation method, and cyanidation method. Three commonly used beneficiation methods are flotation, magnetic, and gravity separation.
4. What basic operations are usually completed in the beneficiation process?
Answer: The beneficiation methods are mainly divided into two categories, namely physical beneficiation and chemical beneficiation, among which physical beneficiation includes magnetic separation method, gravity separation method, electrostatic beneficiation method, friction beneficiation method, particle size beneficiation method, shape beneficiation method, corona beneficiation method, and hand selection. Chemical beneficiation includes the flotation method (actual flotation is physical and chemical beneficiation), sintering method, leaching method (bacterial leaching and chemical leaching), amalgamation method, and cyanidation method. Three commonly used beneficiation methods are flotation, magnetic, and gravity separation.
5. What are rough selection and sweep selection?
Answer: After the ore is first sorted, part of the gangue or surrounding rock is selected, and a rough concentrate higher than the original ore grade is obtained. This process is called knowledge selection; the coarse concentrate is re-selected to obtain Qualified concentrate. This process is called selection; rougher tailings are not discarded as final tailings and need to be processed in the next step, which is called sweeping.
6. What are concentrates, medium ore, and tailings?
Answer: After the sorting operation processes the ore, it removes most of the gangue and magazines, and the concentrate is the product enriched with useful minerals; the intermediate product obtained during the sorting process of the ore is called medium ore; After the sorting operation processes the raw ore, its main components have been enriched in the concentrate. After some comprehensive treatment, it recovers the secondary components and other associated ore metals, and the remaining part of the product contains defective valuable components. This part of the product is called tailings.
7. What is the meaning of ore grade?
Answer: The ore grade refers to the amount of a certain metal or useful component contained in the ore. Generally expressed as a percentage (%), raw ore grade refers to the rate of the metal content in the raw ore entering the concentrator to the number of raw ore. It is one of the indicators reflecting the quality of the raw ore and one of the primary data of the metal balance in the concentrator. Concentrate grade refers to the percentage of the metal content in the concentrate, which is one of the indicators reflecting the quality of the concentrate. Tailings grade refers to the rate of metals contained in tailings to the number of raw ore, which reflects the loss of metals in the beneficiation process.
8. How to calculate the average Grade and cumulative Grade?
To calculate the average Grade and cumulative Grade, you need to have information about the grades of individual samples or sections within a mineral deposit. Here’s how you can calculate these grades
Average Grade
Determine the total number of samples or sections (n) you have grade data for.
Add up the individual grades of all the samples or sections.
Divide the sum of the grades by the total number of samples or sections (n) to obtain the average Grade.
Average Grade = (Sum of Grades) / (Total Number of Samples or Sections)
Cumulative Grade
Arrange the individual samples or sections in ascending order based on their grades.
Calculate the cumulative sum of grades by adding up the grades sequentially from the first sample or section to the last.
Divide the cumulative sum of grades by the total number of samples or sections to obtain the cumulative Grade.
Cumulative Grade = (Cumulative Sum of Grades) / (Total Number of Samples or Sections)
It’s important to note that the grades used in these calculations should be in the same units and consistent with the mineral or element of interest (e.g., percentage, parts per million, grams per ton, etc.). Also, ensure you have accurate and representative grade data for reliable calculations.
9. What is the yield?
Answer: In the process of beneficiation, the percentage of the weight of a product obtained and raw ore weight is called the yield of the product.
10. What is the recovery rate?
Answer: The beneficiation recovery rate refers to the percent of concentration metal and raw ore metal. The recovery rate is an important beneficiation index. It reflects the metals recovery degree in the beneficiation process, technology level, and beneficiation quality.
11. What is the beneficiation ratio?
Answer: The beneficiation ratio refers to the tons of raw ore required to select one ton of concentrate.
12. What is the bonanza ratio?
Answer: The rich ore ratio is the ratio of the grade of useful minerals in the concentrate to the grade of useful minerals in the raw ore. The concentrate grade is several times that of the raw ore.
13. What is the processing capacity of the raw ore?
Answer: The amount of raw ore processed refers to the amount entering the processing plant.
14. What is the daily processing capacity of beneficiation?
Answer: Daily processing capacity is the average amount of raw ore processed in each beneficiation working day.
15. What is the physical labor productivity of all employees in the selection plant?
Answer: The physical labor productivity of all employees of the dressing plant refers to the average amount of raw ore processed by all employees of the dressing plant during the reporting period. It is a comprehensive index reflecting the degree of mineral processing machinery and equipment and labor efficiency.
16. What is the physical labor productivity of mineral processing workers?
Answer: The physical labor productivity of beneficiation workers refers to the average amount of raw ore processed by each worker during the reporting period.
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