A Complete List of Copper Dressing Equipment Used in Ore Dressing Plants

01Different copper dressing process schemes

Generally speaking, for impregnated copper ore, the basic process is often used, with a first grinding fineness of -200 mesh accounting for about 50%~70%, 1 roughing, 2~3 concentrating, and 1~2 scavenging. If the impregnation particle size of the copper mineral is relatively fine, a staged grinding process can be considered. When processing bornite, coarse concentrate is usually re-grinded. In the grinding process of the concentrating stage, the coarse concentrate is firstly subjected to a stage of coarse grinding, coarse concentrating, and scavenging, and then the coarse concentrate is re-grinded and re-concentrated to obtain high-quality copper concentrate and sulfur concentrate. Dense copper ore is a dense symbiosis of chalcopyrite and pyrite, and pyrite is often activated by secondary copper minerals. The pyrite content is high, which is difficult to suppress and difficult to sort. In the beneficiation process, it is required to obtain copper concentrate and sulfur concentrate at the same time. Usually, the tailings after copper selection are sulfur concentrate. If the gangue content in the ore exceeds 20%~25%, it needs to be sorted again to obtain sulfur concentrate. In the process of dense copper dressing, two-stage grinding or stage grinding is usually adopted, and the grinding fineness should be finer.

02Copper dressing plant equipment

The general principle process of copper dressing is to pre-process before selection, crush and grind the large ore blocks, and then select them. According to the properties of copper ore and other minerals contained in it, it is divided into flotation, magnetic separation and other methods. The copper concentrate and tailings obtained after selection need to be concentrated and dehydrated.

1. Copper ore crushing equipment

In order to achieve the purpose of energy saving, high efficiency and increased production, the copper ore crushing stage often adopts the method of "more crushing and less grinding". The key to achieving this is the grinding equipment. The ore particle size can be crushed to 15mm. The required crushing equipment includes hammer crusher, jaw crusher, impact crusher, cone crusher, etc. Among them, the hammer crusher is often used for a coarse crushing operation; the jaw crusher is used for primary crushing or medium crushing, which is suitable for ores of various hardness; the impact crusher is suitable for medium hardness ore crushing, especially in the secondary crushing link. It is widely used; the cone crusher is often used for secondary or tertiary fine crushing operations to process the ore after jaw crushing.

2. Copper ore grinding equipment

Grinding fineness is an important basis for evaluating the production efficiency of copper ore dressing plants. Due to old age, domestic equipment has a certain gap with the international average level. According to the mosaic distribution of copper ore, grinding fineness <0.5m is better. If it is greater than this data, the spiral classifier cannot work normally and screening equipment must be used instead. The magnetic separation equipment must also be adjusted accordingly. Therefore, the selection of grinding equipment should be based on actual conditions. The main equipment is ball mill and rod mill. Among them, ball mills are divided into grid ball mills and overflow ball mills. The former is mostly used for one-stage or rough grinding operations, while the latter is mostly used for two-stage or multi-stage fine grinding operations; rod mills are mostly suitable for coarse-grained copper ore or for grinding copper ore with higher hardness.

3. Copper ore flotation equipment

The flotation method uses the difference in surface properties between copper minerals and gangue minerals under the action of flotation agents to make copper minerals adhere to bubbles and float to the surface of the slurry to form an enriched foam layer, while gangue minerals remain in the slurry, thus achieving effective recovery of valuable minerals. The equipment used in this ore dressing method is mainly mechanical stirring flotation machine, aerated stirring flotation machine and flotation housing. Among them, the mechanical stirring flotation machine achieves the mixing of slurry and air through mechanical stirring to generate bubbles, which is often used for roughing and concentrating operations; the aerated stirring flotation machine injects air into the slurry through external equipment to generate bubbles and then achieve flotation. This type of equipment has a simple structure and is easy to maintain. It is mostly used in small and medium-sized ore dressing plants or flotation operations under specific conditions; the flotation housing is often used in large ore dressing plants, especially in places with high environmental requirements. The equipment has a large processing capacity and high flotation efficiency, and is particularly suitable for the recovery of fine-grained minerals.

4. Copper ore magnetic separation equipment

The magnetic separation method is mainly to remove magnetic impurities from copper ore. Dry magnetic separation is mostly suitable for processing coarse-grained copper ore with low water content. It is generally used as a pre-selection operation to discard some waste rocks in advance and improve the grade of subsequent operations; wet magnetic separation is often used for fine selection operations to improve the grade of copper concentrate. The equipment required in this process mainly includes permanent magnetic drum magnetic separator, wet magnetic separator, dry magnetic separator, etc. Among them, the magnetic field strength of the permanent magnetic drum magnetic separator is stable, not easily affected by external factors, and has a large processing capacity. It is suitable for large-scale production and is widely used in the magnetic separation of copper ores of various particle sizes. Whether it is roughing, fine selection or scavenging operations, it can play a role; the magnetic system design of the wet magnetic separator is reasonable, the magnetic field gradient is large, and it has a good recovery effect on weakly magnetic copper ore minerals. It is mainly used for fine-grained copper ore selection operations; the dry magnetic separator is adapted to arid environments, does not require water, is simple to operate, and can effectively remove some magnetic impurities, creating favorable conditions for subsequent operations.

5. Copper ore concentration and dehydration equipment

Copper ore dehydration is mainly divided into concentrate dehydration and tailings dehydration. The concentrate dehydration mainly adopts concentration equipment and filtration equipment to make it reach a certain water content, and then dry it for industrial application; copper tailings dehydration is mainly determined by the tailings treatment requirements, and different tailings dry discharge processes can be used to achieve dehydration. The main applicable dehydration equipment are: high-efficiency concentrator, chamber filter press, vacuum filter, cyclone and dehydration screen.

The above content is a brief introduction to the copper dressing process and equipment. According to the different types and properties of ore, Xinhai Mining recommends conducting beneficiation tests and customizing the design of copper ore dressing process and equipment to improve the quality of concentrate and the utilization rate of ore resources. If necessary, please consult Xinhai Mining to provide you with EPCM+O service for copper dressing.