GOALS AND BASICS OF MINERAL PROCESSING

In the traditional sense, mineral processing is regarded as the processing of ores or other materials to yield concentrated products. Most of the processes involve physical concentration procedures during which the chemical nature of the mineral(s) in question does not change. In hydrometallurgical processing, however, chemical reactions invariably occur; these systems are operated at ambient or elevated temperatures depending on the kinetics of the processes.
The lead zinc ore processing in the production of metals is to yield metals in their purest form. Mineral processing plays an integral part in achieving this objective. Figure 1 shows a generalized flow diagram for metals extraction from mining (step 1) through chemical processing.
Steps 2 and 3 involve physical processing and steps 5 and 7 involve low-temperature chemical processing (hydrometallurgy).

All four steps are considered part of mineral processing. High-temperature smelting and refining (pyrometallurgy), steps 4 and 6, are not included under the heading of mineral processing.
Table 1 specifies processing routes from ore to pure metal for a number of metals. Note that processing routes can be quite different and that more than one route may be possible for many of these metals. For example, in the extraction of copper or gold from low-grade ores, dump or heap leaching is commonly practiced. The choice of this leaching practice is frequently driven by the overall economics of the operation. Because crushing and grinding of ores are quite expensive, leaching of ores in large sizes is attractive compared to the leaching of finely ground ores, even though the overall recovery of metals from the leaching of fine particles is, in general, much greater than that obtained with large particles. The introduction of this innovative leaching process has made feasible the mining of many mineral deposits that could not be processed economically through conventional technologies.
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METALLURGICAL EFFICIENCY

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One of the most important and basic concepts in beneficiation plant is metallurgical efficiency. Two  terms are commonly used to describe the efficiency of metallurgical processes: recovery and grade . These phenomena are illustrated in the generalized process presented in Figure 1. In above example, 100 tph of ore are being fed into a concentration operation that produces 4.5 tph of concentrate and 95.5 tph of tailings. In upgrading this process, then, 1.0 tph of the desired material, A, is introduced into the unit operation and 0.9 tph (4.5 × 0.2) of this material reports to the concentrate, resulting in 90% recovery (0.9/1.0 × 100). The grade of the mineral, A, has been improved from 1% to 20%. The term percent recovery refers to the percentage of the valuable material reporting to the concentrate with reference to the amount of this material in the feed. Note that obtaining the highest possible recovery is not necessarily the best approach in a concentration process. High...
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Mineral processing unit operation and examples

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