mineral processing technology and mineral processing equipment

If an ore contains conducting as well as non-conducting minerals/particles, electrostatic separation or high tension separation can be employed. Theoretically, it is not necessary that one of two minerals should be a good conductor and the other be a poor conductor, but the difference in their conductivity will affect the separation. The basis of any electrostatic separation is the interaction between an external electric field and the electric charges acquired by the various particles. Particles can be charged by: 1 Contacting dissimilar particles. 2 Conductive induction. 3 Ion bombardment. In every separation, two or more charging mechanisms occur. In charging by contacting dissimilar particles, particles placed on surface are made to repeatedly contact one another as well as the surface; the surface will acquire electrons from one type of particles and give electrons to another type so that two types of particles are charged with opposite charges. When they are passed t...

The operation of applying a force on the particle to break it is called size reduction. Sinonine deeply know that Comminution is a general term for size reduction that may be applied without regard to the actual breakage mechanism involved. In any industrial comminution operation, the breakage of any individual particle is occurring simultaneously with that of many other particles. The breakage product of any particle is intimately mixed with those of other particles. Thus an industrial comminution operation can be analyzed only in terms of a distribution of feed particles and product particles. However, each individual particle breaks as a result of the stresses applied to it and it alone. 1 FRACTURE Fracture in the particle occurs as a result of application of a force. When a force is applied on a particle, stress will develop within the particle. When this stress exceeds ultimate stress, the particle will break. Let us consider a particle subjected to two opposing fo...

Sinonine deeply know that liberation is the first and the most important step in Mineral Beneficiation . The second step, separation, is impracticable if the first step, liberation, is not accomplished successfully. Liberation can be defined as the freeing or detachment of dissimilar mineral grains. The operation employed to liberate the dissimilar mineral grains is Size reduction or Comminution. If the particles of ore consist of a single mineral, they are termed as Free particles. If the particles of ore consist of two or more minerals, they are termed as locked particles. If the locked particles contain valuable minerals at considerable quantity, they are termed as middling particles. Grain size : It is the size of a mineral as it occurs in the ore. Particle size : It is the size of any particle whether free or locked particle. Grain and Grain size pertain to uncrushed ore and Particle and Particle size pertain to crushed or ground ore. Liberation size : It is the size ...

Size of the particle is an important consideration in Mineral Beneficiation because of the following main reasons: ---Energy consumed for reducing the size of the particles depends on size. ---Size of the particles determines the type of size reduction equipment, beneficiation equipment and other equipment to be employed.  The size of the particle of standard configuration like sphere and cube can easily be specified. For example, the size of a spherical particle is its diameter (d) and that of a cubical particle is the length of its side (l) as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 Spherical and cubical particles. As the mineral particles are irregular in shape, it is difficult to define and determine their size. The size of a particle is defined by comparison with a standard configuration, normally a spherical particle. Equivalent size or equivalent diameter of an irregular particle is defined as the diameter of a spherical particle which behaves similar to an irregular...

Sinonine think that centrifugal separator is an important gravity equipment in beneficiation plant. Heavy medium cyclone is a centrifugal separator similar to the conventional hydrocyclone in principle of operation. It provides a high centrifugal force and a low viscosity of the medium. Much finer separations are achieved in Heavy medium cyclone than in gravity separators. The ore or coal is suspended in a very fine medium of ferrosilicon or magnetite, and is fed tangentially to the Heavy medium cyclone under pressure. The sink product leaves the cyclone at the apex and the float product is discharged through the vortex finder. These cyclones are commonly installed with axes at 10–15° to the horizontal, thereby enabling the unit to be fed at comparatively low inlet pressure, preferably from a steady head tank. Heavy medium cyclones are widely used for beneficiation of coal in the size range of 13–0.5 mm in coal washeries. By giving a special shape to the cone, and to the cylindr...

The machines used for magnetic separation are called magnetic separators. The principle operation of a magnetic separator is: When a stream of ore particles is continuously passed through a field of magneticforce, the magnetic particles are attracted towards the source of magnetic force while the non-magnetics travel unaffected. Magnetic separation, in an industry, is achieved by simultaneously applying a magnetic force on all particles of an ore which acts on magnetic particles and a combination of forces which acts in a different direction and affects both magnetic and nonmagnetic particles. The most commonly applied nonmagnetic forces are gravitational, centrifugal, and fluid drag. Other forces which usually enter in an incidental manner are frictional, inertial and attractive or repulsive inter-particle forces. These forces depend on both the nature of the feed material and the character of the separator. The nature of the feed material includes its size distribution, mag...