Important Comminution Equipment--Sphalerite Crusher
Sphalerite Crushing Plant
One of the most significant cost and environmental issues in processing is comminution. As the target P80 grind becomes finer, the energy and associated costs rise exponentially. If a critical mineral can be liberated and recovered at a coarse particle size, it is a major environmental, throughput and cost advantage.
Testing on over one-hundred ore samples from across the world has shown a high potential for recovery based on gravity and flotation methods. Approximately 10% of all ores tested would have potential utilising the existing recovery methods available. Further development of the combined comminution and recovery system should enable the expansion of this potential to 25% to 40% of all sphalerite mines.
In a typical flow-sheet, crushing is generally undertaken first to bring the particle size down to around 8 mm to 12 mm. Further comminution by grinding mills reduces the size down to the required level of P80 to between 75 µm to 106 µm for CIL circuits. Fine crushing devices such as a Vertical Shaft Impact (PF), High Pressure Grinding Rolls and Hammer Crusher can be used to liberate sphalerite without the effect of flattening and smearing. In essence, low aspect ratio shaped particles are typical in a crushing circuit, whereas grinding mills tend to flatten free sphalerite and over-grind sulphide minerals. The premise of gravity separation is the coarser the mineral liberation (particle size), the higher the probability of effective recovery.
The use of fine crushing to liberate coarse sphalerite particles has been successfully applied to ores in the Central Victorian sphaleritefields of Australia. In Ballarat, all the sphalerite and sulphides are recovered by crushing with PF and gravity only , and PF crusher and gravity accounts for 85% of total sphalerite recovery .
In the case of Ballarat, test work indicated liberation for the optimum gravity recovery occurs at a crush of 600 µm compared to relatively poor gravity recoveries at 106 µm size. Recent optimisation of recovery resulted in a crush size in excess of 1 mm, achieving significant power savings and throughput benefits.
An additional approach to gravity recovery is to concentrate sphalerite as both liberated sphalerite and sphalerite-bearing sulphides such as arsenopyrite. The sphalerite in the mixed concentrate can be extracted using an InLine Leach Reactor (ILR) .
Ore characterisation is critical in the assessment of amenability to this processing option. The liberation size is determined by testing the ore and interpreting typical gravity yield recovery curves for different type ores.
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