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METALLURGICAL SERVICES
SGS Minerals Services has the expertise to conducts mineral sands testing in Australia, South Africa, and Canada. Our excellent selection of magnetic and electrostatic separators as well as various roll, plate, spiral and drum separators augment our experience in mineral sands processing.
BACKGROUND
The separation of mineral sands exploits the natural physical properties of the various mineral types, which behave differently under various conditions. Typical methods of separation include the following:
- High tension and electrostatic separation
- dependent upon conductive minerals (ilmenite, rutile and leucoxene) and non-conductive minerals (zircon, kyanite and quartz) behaving differently when subjected to electrical forces.
- Magnetic separation
- dependent upon the iron content of a mineral to allow separation. Magnetic minerals (ilmenite, staurolite and monazite) will easily separate from non-magnetic minerals (zircon, kyanite and quartz) when subjected to a magnetic field.
- Gravity separation
- relies upon the differences in specific gravity of minerals to provide efficient separation. Heavier minerals (ilmenite, rutile, zircon and monazite) are easily separated from lighter minerals (quartz, kyanite, garnet and staurolite) when subjected to any of the various methods of gravity separation.
SYNTHETIC RUTILE
Because of its high titanium dioxide content, rutile was the preferred titania-containing raw material, particularly for the manufacture of pigment by the chloride process. However the strong demand for rutile outstripped the supply and attention turned to beneficiating ilmenite. A process to upgrade ilmenite concentrates to rutile-type substitutes was developed in Western Australia (known as the Becher Process) and several plants now use this technology. These plants are located at Chandala (Tiwest), Narngulu (formerly RGC now Iluka Resources) and at Capel.
MINERAL SANDS TESTWORK
- Processing of drill samples including grinding, attritioning and mineral analysis
- QEMSCAN quantitative mineral analysis of common phases such as rutile, ilmenite, leucoxene, TiO2 %
- Processing of cemented ilmenite including milling, wet gravity concentration, roasting, magnetic separation and leaching
- Wet gravity selection of mineral sands including rougher, cleaner and recleaner stages of spiral concentrators
- Upgrading Ilmonite
- Processing of bulk drill hole samples to simulate processing plant conditions
SGS FACILITIES FOR MINERAL SANDS PREPARATION
The main facilities available include the following:
ORE PREPARATION
- Trommel scrubber: 750mm long x 300mm diameter.
- Log-washer: double log 1500mm long.
- Attritioning cells.
- Cyclones: various sizes from 12mm to 100 mm.
- Screens: various sizes.
- Mixing/storage: slurry tanks to 10,000L.
SEPARATION
- Spiral test rig: capable of housing four different spiral types at any time and recirculating material is closed loop up to 3.2 tonnes per hour.
- Bulk sample spiral pilot plant for continuous multi-stage (rougher / cleaner / re-cleaner / scavenger) operation including automatic sampling at each stage.
- High tension roll: bench scale Readings, 240mm high tension roll separator with built in heating for stable conditions.
- Electrostatic plate separator: Reihert bench scale plate separator with built in heating for stable conditions.
- Induced roll magnet: Readings pilot scale top fed induced roll magnet with vibratory feeder.
- Eriez wet drum magnet: for separation of strong paramagnetic minerals such as magnetite and hematite.
- Upcurrent classifier: Hydrosizer design classifier for separation of differing heavy and light minerals or sizing of similar minerals.
- Crossbelt magnet: Readings 3 pole, 7 belt half size crossbelt magnet capable of 2.0 tonnes per hour.
HEAVY LIQUID SEPARATION
- In-house facilities using polytungstate salt or methylene iodide up to SG of about 3.3. Out-sourcing for SG above 3.3.
SYNTHETIC RUTILE PRODUCTION
- In-house facilities are available to undertake testing of ilmenite processing by the Becher Process. The laboratory is equipped with a rotary kiln, which can simulate ilmenite reduction with char. Laboratory procedures for the subsequent processing steps (aeration and acid leaching) have also been developed to generate synthetic rutile from the reduced ilmenite product.
Because of the capacity to vary the gas atmosphere in the kiln, a wide range of experimental programs is possible. Possible applications for such testwork would include chromite removal.
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