Concentration plant: description, features

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The necessary underground elements mined in the form of minerals and various organic compounds, due to their physical and chemical properties that can be used in industrial production, need to be processed. For these purposes, independent (most often dependent on other subjects of activity), organizational and separate objects with a certain type of activity were created - enrichment plants. This is a mining enterprise created for the initial processing of solid minerals. The result of such a process is the release of the necessary products that are used in industrial production.

Enrichment process in factories

The use of different solutions to separate metals and minerals from each other by the difference in their physical or chemical properties is called beneficiation. Applying diverse methods at ore concentration plants, a product is obtained from it, in which the presence of a useful substance is incomparably greater than in the source. This is the concentrate. Also, when enriched, products withthe average capacity of the desired substance - intermediate, they are returned for processing. The leanest products are called tails.

Concentrators process:

• natural mineral compounds of non-ferrous metals: ore minerals containing copper, nickel, tin, molybdenum, lead, zinc, etc.;
• natural minerals of ferrous metals, containing iron, manganese and chromium;
• desired metal-free natural resources: phosphorus, graphite and many other natural compounds;
• coal.

Sometimes, when enriching mineral and organic formations, ready-made raw materials (asbestos, limestone, graphite) can be obtained for further use.

In 1760, the first factory for the extraction and enrichment of gold was built in Russia.

Classification of processing plants

Where a factory is located in relation to a mining organization determines its status. Concentrators defined as follows:

• Custom order - function to work with mineral compounds that come from a single mining enterprise. They are located on the same territory within the industrial zone.
• Centralized (group) - for the enrichment of natural natural minerals from different mining mines; the work site is located away from the latter.

In addition, the presence of such factory productions, which are located directly atconsuming facility, for example, a coke plant.

Types of businesses

Depending on the process by which natural mineral compounds are processed in factory production, they are distinguished as follows:

• enterprises with crushing and screening mode;
• objects of flushing mode of operation;
• gravity processing objects;
• flotation objects;
• enrichment sites with magnetic process;
• with hybrid technology.

For example, a crushing and screening plant. Crushing and sorting takes place on it, depending on the bulkiness of rocks, mineral and organic formations, slags and other materials. The purpose of these processes is to obtain a product of a certain granular composition. A crushing and screening organization can be positioned as an independent enterprise or be a workshop of coal processing plants. Crushers and ball mills of various shapes are used as profile equipment.

Washing plants are characterized by a method of beneficiation of rock, better known from the process of extracting gold from natural sources.

Gravity Method Factories

In factories with gravity mode, operation is based on the law of gravity, as a result of which mineral compounds are separated from each other due to different parameters in density. Coal, shale, wolframite, zircon, ores of ferrous and rare metals are enriched by the gravity method,phosphates and diamonds. In total, about four billion tons per year are processed by this method. This is achieved due to the cheapness of the method, the simplicity of the equipment, the ease of purification of wastewater and the possibility of implementing closed water supply to the mining and processing plant.

Flotation and other factories

Flotation method (translated from French - "float") is characterized by the ability of natural mineral compounds to stay on the surface, due to the difference in specific energies. Flotation process natural compounds of non-ferrous metals, coal, sulfur.

Processing using the magnetic regime of natural minerals is characterized by the basis of the process of a diverse magnetic field on parts of minerals with different magnetic abilities. Thus, compounds of iron, tungsten, titanium and other types of mineral resources are processed at concentrating plants. In this case, equipment such as magnetic separators is used.

Hybrid enrichment includes roasting and hydrometallurgy.

Factory layout layout

Processing plants come in vertical, horizontal and staggered arrangements.

Vertical arrangement - implies movement in the work area of the movement of material by gravity. Has not received much popularity and distribution due to high circulation loads.

Horizontal arrangement is havingmany ways of movement mechanized transport system. In practice, it is seen in rare cases, as it requires the presence of huge industrial areas.

Step setting is a combined system of the previous two material transports.

Since the 80s, the principle of modules has been applied in the construction and design of processing plants. This was based on the modes of standard processing processes: flotation, crushing, etc. Also, single-section layouts with single-flow schemes and the presence of high-performance equipment are used. In many developed countries, multi-sectional enrichment enterprises with the advantage of a stepped layout have become very popular and widespread. LLC enrichment plant "Uzlovskaya", located in the Donetsk basin, is a vivid example of this. Founded in 1934, the factory has gone through all stages of development and has become a highly mechanized enterprise.

Process safety

Mineral useful compounds for processing at the factory bypass numerous stages - from crushing mode to concentrate output. Finished raw materials are stored in bunkers. After that, it is planned to ship to the consumer or send it for recycling.

These work processes release harmful substances into the atmosphere in the form of dust and gases. In contrast to this, there is an aspiration system at the processing plants.

Aspiration means the suction of air using special equipmentdirectly at the place of formation of harmful gases and dust.

To combat noise in factories, sealing equipment is used. In places of increased dust emission, hydro-dedusting is used by suppressing the dust cloud by spraying steam mist.