Developments in Mineral Separation Have Much Knowledge to Be Known

Since the first dense media cyclone was patented in 1858, there are many developments in mineral separation occurring, using metal chloride salts dissolved in water.   To grasp the knowledge of the developments in mineral separation can makes a good sense of mining industry, which is helpful for the growth of the industry.

The Chance Process using water and sand was patented in 1917 and was first applied to cleaning bituminous ore in 1925.   Although the Conklin Process using magnetite as the medium was tried with anthracite in 1922, it was not until 1938 that the Tromp Process for magnetite medium was used commercially.   The purposes of these and other developments were to improve the quality of ore to make it suitable for a specific purpose.   Since about 78% of the ore in the U.S. is used to generate electricity the properties and quantities of impurities in ore are of major importance in the design and operation of steam generating equipment.   Also because of the lover quality of raw ore and the desire to recover more of the ore that is mined, the practice of mineral separation is increasing.   According to recent information of the ore that is mined east of the Mississippi River is subject to some level of ore cleaning.

Customer requirements center on the needs of the end user – steam generation for electricity and metallurgical coke production for the steel industry.   The steam ore users, mostly utilities, require optimum calorific value, consistent customers require a higher degree of product consistency to maximize coke yield, coke strength and ultimate maximum hot metal production and quality.   Collectively, these fuel requirements translate into the lowest bus bar power or hot metal cost for the ore purchases.

Conventional mineral separation machines account for about 25% of the cost of the total surface facility.   The mineral flotation machine cost may comprise 5-15% of the cost of an ore mine.   A thermal dryer installation may cost 25-30% of the...