In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlies an ore or mineral body and is displaced during mining without being processed.
A mill is a device, often a structure, machine or kitchen appliance, that breaks solid materials into smaller pieces by grinding, crushing, or cutting. Such comminution is an important unit operation in many processes. There are many different types of mills and many types of materials processed in them. Historically, mills were powered by hand or by animals, working animal, wind (windmill) or water (watermill). In the modern era, they are usually powered by electricity.
Froth flotation is a process for selectively separating hydrophobic materials from hydrophilic. This is used in mineral processing, paper recycling and waste-water treatment industries. Historically this was first used in the mining industry, where it was one of the great enabling technologies of the 20th century. It has been described as "the single most important operation used for the recovery and upgrading of sulfide ores". The development of froth flotation has improved the recovery of valuable minerals, such as copper- and lead-bearing minerals. Along with mechanized mining, it has allowed the economic recovery of valuable metals from much lower-grade ore than previously possible.
Mineral processing is the process of separating commercially valuable minerals from their ores in the field of extractive metallurgy. Depending on the processes used in each instance, it is often referred to as ore dressing or ore milling.
Gold extraction is the extraction of gold from dilute ores using a combination of chemical processes. Gold mining produces about 3600 tons annually, and another 300 tons is produced from recycling.
Heap leaching is an industrial mining process used to extract precious metals, copper, uranium, and other compounds from ore using a series of chemical reactions that absorb specific minerals and re-separate them after their division from other earth materials. Similar to in situ mining, heap leach mining differs in that it places ore on a liner, then adds the chemicals via drip systems to the ore, whereas in situ mining lacks these liners and pulls pregnant solution up to obtain the minerals. Heap leaching is widely used in modern large-scale mining operations as it produces the desired concentrates at a lower cost compared to conventional processing methods such as flotation, agitation, and vat leaching.
A dust collector is a system used to enhance the quality of air released from industrial and commercial processes by collecting dust and other impurities from air or gas. Designed to handle high-volume dust loads, a dust collector system consists of a blower, dust filter, a filter-cleaning system, and a dust receptacle or dust removal system. It is distinguished from air purifiers, which use disposable filters to remove dust.
The term wet scrubber describes a variety of devices that remove pollutants from a furnace flue gas or from other gas streams. In a wet scrubber, the polluted gas stream is brought into contact with the scrubbing liquid, by spraying it with the liquid, by forcing it through a pool of liquid, or by some other contact method, so as to remove the pollutants.
Biomining refers to any process that uses living organisms to extract metals from ores and other solid materials. Typically these processes involve prokaryotes, however fungi and plants may also be used. Biomining is one of several applications within biohydrometallurgy with applications in ore refinement, precious metal recovery, and bioremediation. The largest application currently being used is the treatment of mining waste containing iron, copper, zinc, and gold allowing for salvation of any discarded minerals. It may also be useful in maximizing the yields of increasingly low grade ore deposits. Biomining has been proposed as a relatively environmentally friendly alternative and/or supplementation to traditional mining. Current methods of biomining are modified leach mining processes. These aptly named bioleaching processes most commonly includes the inoculation of extracted rock with bacteria and acidic solution, with the leachate salvaged and processed for the metals of value. Biomining has many applications outside of metal recovery, most notably is bioremediation which has already been used to clean up coastlines after oil spills. There are also many promising future applications, like space biomining, fungal bioleaching and biomining with hybrid biomaterials.
Mount Isa Mines Limited ("MIM") operates the Mount Isa copper, lead, zinc and silver mines near Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia as part of the Glencore group of companies. For a brief period in 1980, MIM was Australia's largest company. It has pioneered several significant mining industry innovations, including the Isa Process copper refining technology, the Isasmelt smelting technology, and the IsaMill fine grinding technology, and it also commercialized the Jameson Cell column flotation technology.
In-situ leaching (ISL), also called in-situ recovery (ISR) or solution mining, is a mining process used to recover minerals such as copper and uranium through boreholes drilled into a deposit, in situ. In-situ leach works by artificially dissolving minerals occurring naturally in the solid state.
In metallurgical processes tank leaching is a hydrometallurgical method of extracting valuable material from ore.
Hemerdon Mine, also known as Hemerdon Ball Mine, Hemerdon Bal Mine and (briefly) previously as Drakelands Mine is a tungsten and tin mine. It is located 11 km northeast of Plymouth, near Plympton, in Devon, England. It lies to the north of the villages of Sparkwell and Hemerdon, and adjacent to the large china clay pits near Lee Moor. The mine had been out of operation since 1944, except for the brief operation of a trial mine in the 1980s. Work started to re-open it in 2014, but it ceased activities in 2018. It hosts the fourth largest tin-tungsten deposit in the world.
The IsaMill is an energy-efficient mineral industry grinding mill that was jointly developed in the 1990s by Mount Isa Mines Limited and Netzsch Feinmahltechnik ("Netzsch"), a German manufacturer of bead mills. The IsaMill is primarily known for its ultrafine grinding applications in the mining industry, but is also being used as a more efficient means of coarse grinding. By the end of 2008, over 70% of the IsaMill's installed capacity was for conventional regrinding or mainstream grinding applications, with target product sizes ranging from 25 to 60 μm.
The Fort Knox Gold Mine is an open pit gold mine, 9 mi (14 km) east of Fox in the Fairbanks mining district of Alaska. It is owned and operated by Toronto-based Kinross Gold. Originally staked in 1913, after very minor mining at the location the property sat idle until being restaked in 1980. Following the initial exploration discovery in 1987, in 1992 the project was purchased by Amax Gold, which brought the mine to production. Amax Gold merged with Kinross Gold in 1998.
Sensor-based sorting, is an umbrella term for all applications in which particles are detected using a sensor technique and rejected by an amplified mechanical, hydraulic or pneumatic process.
The Jameson Cell is a high-intensity froth flotation cell that was invented by Laureate Professor Graeme Jameson of the University of Newcastle (Australia) and developed in conjunction with Mount Isa Mines Limited.
High-frequency vibrating screens are the most important screening machines primarily utilised in the mineral processing industry. They are used to separate feeds containing solid and crushed ores down to less than 200 μm in size, and are applicable to both perfectly wetted and dried feed. The frequency of the screen is mainly controlled by an electromagnetic vibrator which is mounted above and directly connected to the screening surface. Its high-frequency characteristics differentiate it from a normal vibrating screen. High-frequency vibrating screens usually operate at an inclined angle, traditionally varying between 0° and 25° and can go up to a maximum of 45°. They should operate with a low stroke and have a frequency ranging from 1500 to 9000 RPM. Frequency in High frequency screen can be fixed or variable. Variable High Frequency screen is more versatile to tackle varied material condition like particle size distribution, moisture and have higher efficiency due to incremental increase in frequency. G force plays important role in determining specific screening capacity of screen in terms of TPH per sqm. G force increases exponentially with frequency.
A primary mineral is any mineral formed during the original crystallization of the host igneous primary rock and includes the essential mineral(s) used to classify the rock along with any accessory minerals. In ore deposit geology, hypogene processes occur deep below the Earth's surface, and tend to form deposits of primary minerals, as opposed to supergene processes that occur at or near the surface, and tend to form secondary minerals.
The Wilfley Table is commonly used for the concentration of heavy minerals from the laboratory up to the industrial scale. It has a traditional shaking (oscillating) table design with a riffled deck. It is one of several brands of wet tables used for the separation and concentration of heavy ore minerals which include the Deister Table and Holman Table, all built to handle either coarse or fine feeds for mineral processing.
