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MME 351

Principles of Ore Dressing and

xtractive Metallurgy

Lecture 1

Introduction to Ore dressing and

Extractive Metallurgy

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Extractive Metallurgy
ÿ Dealing with the extraction of metals from naturally occurring
compounds known as ores and their refinement to purity
suitable for commercial use.

ÿ Efficiency depends on previous physical enrichment processing

..Ore or Mineral dressing

Sources of metals

Natural occurrence

Earths crust
Sea waters and beds

Recycling of waste metals

Primary metals: Metals extracted from ores or sea water

Secondary metals: Metals extracted from scrap

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Earths crust

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Cross-Section of Planet Earth Showing Key Layers

Earth's crust refers to the outer siliceous

mantle:
shell of our globe - a shell about 16
kilometers thick.

Metals have accumulated, by the

geological processes, in some regions of
the earth's crust.

These accumulations are known as ore

deposits.

. Average Concentration of Some Elements in

the Earth's Crust

"Element Percent Element Percent

Oxygen 46.7 Vanadium 0.014
Silicon 27.7 Chromium 0.01
Aluminium 8.1 Copper 0.01

Iron Nickel 0.008

5.0
Zinc 0.004
Calcium 3.6
Lead 0.002
Potassium 2.6
Silver 0.000001
Sodium 2.8
Platinum 0.0000001
Magnesium 2.1
Gold 0.0000001

8 elements are more abundant than 1% and together they account for
98.5 percent of all the material in the crust.

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Concentration of Some Elements in

Solution in Sea Water

They cover nearly 70% of earth's surface and contain, 3.5% dissolved solids.
Sea water can be considered a dilute solution containing valuable minerals.
About 70 elements have been discovered in sea waters.

Element Concentration
Element Concentration (g/ton)
(g/ton)
Aluminium 0.16-1.9
Sodium 10 500
Iron 0.002-0.02
Magnesium 1270
Zinc 0.005-0.014
Calcium 400
Copper 0.001-0.09
Potassium 300
Manganese 0.001-0.01
Lead 0.004-0.005
Tin 0.003
Gold 0.000005

Mangansese Nodules on the Floor of the Ocean

Approximately one and a half

trillion tons of nodules are
scattered across the floor of the
Pacific ocean alone.

Nodules form at the rate of 10

million tons a year.

The nodule reserves have an

advantage over land reserves in
that they are constantly renewed
whereas land deposits are
constantly being depleted.

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Reserve of Some Metals in Pacific Ocean Nodules

Amount of Element
Element Weight 109 tons
(percent)
Cobalt 0.35 5.2
Manganese 23.86 358
Nickel 0.98 14.7
Aluminium 2.86 43
Copper 0.52 7.9
Zinc 0.46 0.7
Iron 13.80 207
Silver 0.0001 0.001

Recycling of waste metals

Scrap .. already in the metallic state and needs only purifying (refining)
and in the most favourable cases only melting.
Fewer and simpler processing operations, using less total energy and
producing less pollution.

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Advantages of Recycled materials

While providing cheaper metal for the producer, recycling can

satisfy certain social objectives; these include the conservation
of resources and the protection of the environment from
pollution.

By using recycled metal the need to mine new ore deposits is

reduced.

Although the total amount of metal in the earth's crust is very

large, the deposits of high grade ore are limited.

Sources of Scrap Metals

Metal from broken or obsolete objects.

In terms of availability there are three forms of scrap metal: (i) home scrap,
(ii) prompt industrial scrap and (iii) obsolete scrap.

> Home scrap is defined as scrap generated during the production of

either primary or secondary metal.

ÿ Prompt industrial scrap is generated during the manufacturing of metal

articles.

» Obsolete scrap is obtained from manufactured products which are no

longer useful, and includes such items as old railway lines, old
industrial machinery and equipment and automobiles.

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Sources of scrap metals. ..continued

Principal sources of obsolete scrap

Automobile graveyard [ iron mine above ground]

In 2003 the automotive recycling industry alone in U.S. recycled
nearly 13 million vehicles

Ship-breaking
In Bangladesh, in 2005, about 2 million tons of steel and steel
products were made and 75 percent (about 1.5 m tons) of scrap used
as raw material was ship scrap.

Problems of Scrap collection

ÿ Collection and sorting of the scrap: highly labour intensive operation
ÿ Home scrap or prompt industrial scrap..are recycled within a short
time.
b The recycling of scrap from these sources is not sensitive to the market
prices for scrap since it would be recycled whatever the market
conditions.
b Obsolete scrap is derived from many sources and is dependent on the
lifetime of the structures or equipment.

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Metallurgical Factors in the Recycling of Metals

ÿ The metals can be recycled as alloys rather than as pure metals.
ÿ Not only costly but in many cases unnecessary to produce pure
metals from this recycled material.
ÿ By suitable sorting of scrap before chemical processing alloys can
be recycled as alloys.
ÿ
Brass scrap is recycled as brass not as Cu.

ÿ Contamination of recycled metals by undesirable elements is a major

problem in the recycling of certain materials.
ÿ Cu and tin have extremely deleterious effects on the mechanical
properties of steels

Minerals and Ores

ÿ Metals and their compounds are found in earth as natural

elements known as minerals.

ÿ Ores are minerals from which metals are extracted profitably

and conveniently. Ores contain metal compounds with a lower
percentage of impurities.

All the ores are minerals, but all minerals are not necessarily ores.

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Types of ores
h
Oxides Carbonates Halides Sulphides Sulphates
Marble or Zinc blende
Fluorspar Anglesite
Zincite (ZnO) limestone (ZnS)
(CaF2) (PbS04)
(CaC03) Galena (PbS)
Haematite
(Fe203.xH20) Calamine Cryolite Iron pyrites
Baryl (BaS04)
Magnetite (ZnC03) (Na3AIF6) (FeS2)
(Fe304)
Bauxite Siderite Horn Silver Cinnabar Gypsum
(AI203.2H20) (FeC03) (AgCI) (HgS) (CaS04.2H20)
Cuprite Magnesite Rock salt Epsom salt
(Cu20) (MgC03) (NaCI) (MgS04.7H20)

Ore Dressing: Definition

ÿ Metal ores are concentrates of metal compounds [Value

minerals] and other unwanted minerals [ gangue]

ÿ Ore dressing is a combination of processes ..to remove gangue

minerals from ore

» Traditionally..physical operations
> Recently include..some chemical processing operations also

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Ore dressing operations

Size Reduction
[Crushing]

Particle Selection
Specific gravity, magnetic
P O
property etc

4 ÿThe benefits of ore dressing

Saving in freight because the waste is discarded by the

dressing operations.

Reduction in total extraction cost because of the

reduction in tonnage to be treated.

Contributes to the expansion of commercial ore

reserves.
« In the last century, rocks with less than 1percent copper were
not processed because of high costs involved. Today rocks with
as low as 0.5% Cu are frequently processed to metal.

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Extractive metallurgy

Once the metal bearing component and gangue have been separated the
concentrate produced are subjected to the extraction process

MX -» M + X
Greater the attraction of the metal for X , the greater the stability of MX, the
more difficult the extraction process.
A specific amount of energy is required to release a metal present in a
compound in association with other elements.

ÿ Pyrometallurgy
ÿ
Hydrometallurgy
ÿ Electrometallurgy

Pyrometallurgical Processes

Thermal treatment of ores to bring about physical and chemical

transformations in the materials to enable recovery of valuable
metals

» Drying
a Calcining
a Roasting
ÿ Smelting

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it Hydrometallurgical Processes

The use of aqueous chemistry for the recovery of metals from ores

Hydrometallurgy is typically divided into three general areas:

ÿ Leaching
ÿ Solution concentration and purification
a Metal recovery

Electrometallurgical Processes

All metallurgical processes which utilise electricity and electrical

effects

Electrowinning
Electrorefining

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Problem

Chemical Composition of Ore

A copper ore carries 30 percent chalcopyrite (CuFeS2),

20 pyrite (FeS2) and 50 Si02. What percent of
copper, Iron and sulphur does it contain?

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Solution 2

Analysis of the ore:

CuFeS2 = 30 percent
FeS2 = 20 percent
Si02 = 50 percent
Basis: lOOkgms ore.
30 kg CuFeS2
20 kg FeS2
50 kg Si02

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Solution 2

Total weight of copper in the ore:

= (63.5/[63.5+56+64])x 30 kg

= 63.5/183.5 = 10.38 kg.

Percent copper = 10.38

Solution 2
Total weight of Iron in the ore:
= Iron in CuFeS2 + Iron in FeS2
=(56/183.5) (30) + (56/[56+64])(20) kg
= 9.155 + 9.333 kg
= 18.488 kg.
Percent Iron = 18.49.

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Solution 2
Total weight of Sulphur in the ore

= Sulphur in CuFeS2 + Sulphur in FeS2

= (64/183.5)(30) + (64/120)(20) kg.
= 104.63 + 106.67 = 21.130 kg.

Percent Sulphur = 21.13

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