[Project Case] Xinhai Mining 1 Million TPA Zirconium Titanium Ore Dressing Plant

01Background of the project

The raw ore of the Shandong 1 million TPA zirconium-titanium ore project is mainly imported from Africa, Madagascar, Southeast Asia, the United States, Ukraine, Australia, Brazil and other regions. The mineral composition of raw ore is complex. The process flow adopted by domestically imported zirconium-titanium ore beneficiation plants is relatively simple. Only titanium and zirconium are recovered, resulting in serious losses of metal minerals and limited concentrate quality. This is a huge waste of raw ore imported at a huge price. The intermediate products produced by the mineral processing plant are piled nearby on the ground. The state of the factory can be described as "dirty, messy, and poor." Customers hope that Xinhai Mining can help them achieve two purposes. The first is to comprehensively recover all kinds of recyclable minerals to achieve no tailings emissions. The second is to refine the processing of each recyclable product to increase the added value of each product as much as possible.

(Comprehensive recycling products)

02Xinhai solution

Xinhai Mining attaches great importance to this zirconium-titanium ore project and dispatched more than 30 professional and technical personnel in the research and design process alone to conduct repeated beneficiation tests and innovative process design. After many on-site environmental inspections and studies on the project and multiple rounds of plan modifications, Xinhai technicians took into account the needs of cost savings, environmental protection, safety, automation and other needs, and finally determined the innovative process flow of the Shandong 1 million TPA zirconium-titanium ore project: raw ore scrubbing and desliming-titanium mine wet magnetic separation - magnetic tail classification - particle size gravity separation - electric separation - sewage treatment. Utilizing the differences in magnetism, specific gravity, particle size, and conductivity between minerals, up to 15 types of useful minerals can be accurately recovered. While achieving refined and comprehensive recovery of all valuable minerals, a modern zirconium and titanium concentrator with unique highlights has also been built.

(Xinhai Innovation Zirconium-Titanium Ore Comprehensive Recovery Process Flow)

03Design highlights

Highlight 1:100% comprehensive recycling

Xinhai Mining Research Institute first conducted a professional beneficiation test on zircon titanium ore and issued the "Feasibility Study Report" for zircon titanium ore. It was concluded that the mineral embedded particle size from coarse to fine is: zircon, titanium Iron ore, rutile, monazite.

(Ilmenite concentrate product warehouse)

Xinhai Mining Mining Design Institute referred to the test procedures recommended by the institute and combined with the project field environment, carried out the following process research and design innovations to achieve the comprehensive recovery of useful minerals and maximize the recovery rate.

1. Add scrubbing and desliming process before wet magnetic separation

Zircon titanium ore contains 0.3% mud, which affects both wet magnetic separation and subsequent gravity separation. At the same time, mud will be distributed into all slurries, affecting the sewage treatment effect.

(Scrubbing and desliming workshop)

In the innovative process of Xinhai Mining, a scrubbing and desliming process is added after slurry mixing to scrub away the mud and other impurities on the surface of the ore particles to provide relatively clean raw materials for subsequent wet magnetic separation and gravity separation operations. Titanium ore and The quality of valuable products such as zircon sand and rutile has also been further improved. At the same time, the amount of mud processed after scrubbing and desliming is greatly reduced, reducing the burden of subsequent sewage treatment work.

(Picture of mineral state under microscope before and after scrubbing)

2. Add classification and narrow-grain gravity separation before gravity separation.

(Spiral chute-shaking table gravity separation workshop)

(Spiral chute classifying operation)

For gravity separation operations using spiral chute and shaker, the narrower the range of other particle sizes, the better the gravity separation effect. In this design, grading operations are added before gravity separation to enhance the gravity separation effect.

3. Repeated selection of intermediate products

Xinhai Mining's innovative design process fully considers the re-selection of intermediate products, repeatedly selecting the intermediate products produced in the zircon and rutile electro-selection stages, and maximizing the product recovery rate and efficiency through process design and equipment layout.

Highlight 2: Automated production process

Xinhai Mining designed an ore dressing automation system for the Shandong 1 million TPA zirconium-titanium ore project. On the one hand, Xinhai Mining designed and implemented an automatic batching system, automatic material distribution system and automatic loading system for this project, which greatly reduced workers' labor intensity and operating errors, and effectively improved the production efficiency and resource utilization of the dressing plant.

(Titanium ore batching monitoring system)

(One-to-nine automatic material distribution system)

On the other hand, taking into account the particularity and complexity of the zirconium-titanium ore process, Xinhai Mining has planned and designed centralized control rooms at the workshop level and factory level to conduct real-time data monitoring, analysis and operation of the entire production process to improve Improve the production automation and intelligence level of the mineral processing plant to create an intelligent green processing plant.

Highlight 3: Intensive factory construction

The zirconium-titanium ore dressing plant designed and constructed by Xinhai Mining adopts an intensive design. All components of the plant except the foundation are factory-produced and assembled on-site after being transported to the site. The modern new steel structure factory building is fast to construct, takes up less space, saves investment and has beautiful appearance.

(three-dimensional workshop)

Within the factory, an intensive design plan is also adopted in the installation of magnetic separation and gravity separation equipment. In the magnetic separation stage, the self-flow of the slurry is realized through the double-layer height difference design; in the gravity separation stage, the conventional practice of "building a shaking table on the ground and digging a pit underground" is changed and the shaking table is arranged in multiple layers to save space.

( shaker on the upper floor of the workshop)

( shaker on the lower floor of the workshop)

Highlight 4: High Standard Environmentally Friendly Design

(1) Underground water treatment

(water treatment system)

Xinhai Mining has designed a centralized wastewater treatment system for the Shandong zirconium-titanium ore dressing plant. All process water in the dressing plant is recycled to the water supply pool and returned to the production process for reuse, achieving zero discharge. The water supply tank of the dressing plant is designed as an underground pool, which can reduce evaporation and reduce the amount of new water added to the dressing plant. The total water consumption in the first phase of the entire project is 2055m³/h, the total return water volume is 2050m³/h, and the return water utilization rate is as high as 99.75%.

(2) Materials do not fall to the ground

Xinhai Mining innovatively put forward the design plan of "materials not falling to the ground", which changed the "dirty, messy and poor" environmental status of the previous mineral processing plant. All raw ore and intermediate products are placed in the storage silo, with forklifts and forklifts removed as much as possible. Intermediate products are transported to the next process through belt conveyors. Except for the final finished product, which requires a forklift to enter the finished product warehouse, there are no forklifts elsewhere. operation, the entire dressing plant realizes continuous automated production.

(The storage silo prevents materials from falling to the ground)

(3) Dust removal and noise reduction

Xinhai Mining carried out dust removal design and noise reduction design for this project, and installed advanced devices such as dust collectors, vacuum hoods, mufflers, shock absorbing pads, and sound insulation covers on the equipment to ensure that the workshop is environmentally friendly with low dust and noise. Standards. At the same time, greening is planted between the factory area and the road to form a sound insulation barrier.

Highlight 5: 3D design assists in reporting regulations

Xinhai Mining Design Institute provided innovative 3D design for this project, allowing customers to view the real effects of the completion of the dressing plant in advance, making it easier for customers to grasp the overall planning of the project. At the same time, Xinhai Mining also uses 3D design to produce regulatory submission renderings for customers to help projects pass approval smoothly.

(3D rendering of ore dressing plant)

Xinhai Mining's 1 million TPA zirconium-titanium ore project in Shandong has been successfully put into production and is running smoothly. The innovative process design comprehensively recovers all recyclable minerals to achieve no tailings emissions, which perfectly meets the customer's demand for recovering all of useful minerals, and also changes the current situation of domestic imported seaside zirconium titanium ore refining plants. . Xinhai Mining's first comprehensive zirconium-titanium ore recovery design scheme has been widely recognized by the industry. As of the end of 2023, Xinhai Mining has successively taken over 5 zirconium-titanium ore projects in Guangxi, Hainan, Guangdong, Jiangsu and other places.

Through cooperation in many of the above projects, Xinhai Mining has accumulated technology and project management experience in the field of zirconium and titanium ore processing. At the same time, Xinhai Mining has rich experience in overseas project construction. It believe that in the future, whether at home or abroad, Xinhai Mining will be able to provide better services to zirconium and titanium ore companies and create greater value for customers. At the same time, Xinhai Mining will further strengthen cooperation and exchanges with the zirconium-titanium ore industry at home and abroad to jointly promote the development and progress of the industry.