Dry/waterless processing of minerals from mine to mill and its optimization

Abstract

Dry mineral separation study was carried out from various published articles, journals, textbooks, conferences etc, according to different authors on various dry separators ranging from the magnetic separators, gravity separators, electrostatic separators, and sensor-based separators. The potentiality and effectiveness of these separators were investigated to understand their different mode of operation, performance characteristics on various kinds of minerals, operability, and maintenance cost, including their limitations on usage. Handling finer particles that are smaller than 75µm has been a common challenge in dry separators. Among various dry mineral separators studied, electrostatic separators have a greater potential in handling particles smaller than 75µm, followed by the Knelson concentrator which is a type of gravity separator, and it was able to separate mineral particles that are smaller than 75µm down to 45µm small-scale pilot trials. Furthermore, magnetic separators have been widely used in dry separation of minerals.