Beneficiation is defined as “any process that improves the economic value of ore by the removal of gangue”. It can be broadly divided into two categories – wet and dry. Wet beneficiation possesses some notable advantages over dry beneficiation including numerous equipment options, high upgrade potential and high capacity. However, there are three main problem areas:
High energy consumption from water pumping and removal
Environmental damage through the creation of Tailings Storage Facilities (TSFs).
Whilst many wet processes can upgrade single micron size particles, dry processes are effectively limited to >100μm particle sizes, which infers that they are better placed at the front end of a circuit where the particles are much larger. A key modular dry beneficiation technology which has gained traction in mining applications over the last decade is ore sorting. By working on ore sorting projects and collaborating with vendors and laboratories over the last five years and have accumulated a wealth of knowledge in this field. In conjunction with our partners, we are able to design systems, perform test work and implement solutions.From a capital expenditure perspective, dividing a plant up into relocatable modules allows the depreciation of the plant to be amortised over a number of projects which improves its suitability for smaller resources.
We have focussed on solving four key issues associated with relocatable plants:
