BATEMAN's test rig for processing
industrial-minerals
The design and engineering of large-scale facilities to separate
the constituent minerals in complex ore bodies containing industrial
minerals cannot be reliably tackled without extensively testing, on
a pilot-plant scale, the effectiveness of a range of the most likely
processes.
Accordingly BATEMAN has established a facility in which as many as
three stages of wet-gravity separation and two-stages of desliming
can be evaluated using representative samples of the ore and the data
produced can be scaled up during the full-scale design stages.
The industrial-minerals test rig consists of a three-stage spiral
circuit with tanks, sumps and pumps with variable-speed drives on
each pump. Complete circuits can be simulated in the rig and tested
as the rig's generic framework permits the insertion of different
types of minerals-separation equipment, e.g. spirals, upstream classifiers,
magnetic separators (e.g. small LIMS, WHIMS (wet, low- and high-intensity
magnetic separation), etc.) and other wet-separation equipment. In
respect of spirals, full-scale units obtained from different suppliers
can be used.
The BATEMAN test rig is available to all clients. While it is usually
located at BATEMAN's Boksburg site in South Africa, it is movable
and can easily be taken to a remote site to facilitate the testing
of bulk samples of the ore body. Depending on the grade of the feed,
the open-circuit system can handle up to 6 t/h of material.
The control equipment is housed in a standard container, facilitating
moves to alternative sites. The rig is usually mounted on a concrete
slab to protect the surrounding environment. A power supply rated
at 380 V is also required.
The rig has been used in several of BATEMAN's most recent feasibility
studies and industrial-minerals projects.
Tests on the Tormin heavy-minerals resource involved the production
of a heavy-mineral concentrate to recover and concentrate zircon,
leucoxene, rutile, ilmenite and garnet. For Norilsk's titanium project,
the rig was used to obtain data needed for the development of the
process flow-sheet and studies are underway for Malawi Sands on the
removal of non-magnetic zircon from a sillimanite (alumina silicate)
ore from a non-magnetic concentrate containing zircon.
Besides the applications mentioned above, the test rig is ideal for
studies on chromite containing ores, for which the recovery and upgrading
stages are very similar to that for heavy-mineral sands. With minor
modification, the processing of coal in spirals circuits can also
be investigated.
More details may be obtained from Leon Rademeyer, BATEMAN Product
Manager, on +27-11-899-2255 or email industrial.minerals@batemanengineering.com.
