Introduction

Mineral processing is a branch of science and technology dealing with processing

of natural and synthetic mineral materials as well as accompanying liquids, solutions
and gases to provide them with desired properties. It is a part of technical sciences,
although it contains elements originating from other fields of knowledge, especially
natural sciences. Mineral processing is based on separation processes and is involved
in performing and description of separations, as well as their analysis, evaluation, and
comparison.
Various terms are used in different countries for mineral processing. In English
speaking countries (USA, UK, Canada, Australia, etc.) it is also termed, dressing,
preparation, beneficiation, and recently mineralurgy or minerallurgy. The Poles
mostly use przeróbka kopalin, the Russians obogashchenie poleznykh iskopaemykh,
the Germans Die Aufberaitung, and the Spanish Procesamiento de minerals.
The term mineralurgia becomes more and more popular in Poland, Italy, Portugal,
Spain, Slovakia, Hungry, Czech Republic, Russia, minéralurgie in France, and min-
eralurgy or minerallurgy in Canada and Australia. In spite of the fact that the term
mineralurgy precisely characterizes our branch of knowledge and practice, it finds dif-
ficulties among both scientists and technologists to be commonly applied.
The word minerallurgy is a combination of the word mineral meaning a substance
resulting from geological processes and a Greek word lurgia (streactly speaking lour-
geion) denoting the place of processing.
Miting raw Post-mining Secondary raw
materials raw materials materials

MINERAL PROCESSING

Metallurgy Chemical
Construstion Wastes
industry
materials

Fig. 1. Place of mineral processing in science and practice

 10 Introduction

The history of mineral processing is as old as that of a man. Cleaving stones,

sharpening flint stones and sorting were one of the first mineral processing activities
practiced by humans. A considerable development of mineral processing and its phys-
icochemical basis took place within the last hundred years. Processing of useful min-
erals has become a branch of science and technology closely cooperating with mining
and chemical industry as well as other branches of industry. Minerallurgy also deals
with utilization of industrial an municipal wastes. The products manufactured by
minerallurgists are utilized by metallurgical, chemical, civil engineering, and envi-
ronmental protection industries (Fig.1.).

EXTRACTIVE METALLURGY
MINERALLURGY METALLURGY
(MINERAL PROCESSING)
(separations without chemcial changes) (separations with chemcial changes)

feed
grinding concentrate smelting metal
screening leaching
flotation & other electrolysis
oindustr
t ies
tailing
h tailing
e
r
Fig. 2. Mineral processing is a part of extractive metallurgy

Mineral Processing, together with metallurgy, constitute extractive metallurgy

(Fig. 2). Extractive metallurgy is a wide branch of knowledge as it covers many raw
materials and numerous methods of separation.
Mineral processing is sometimes divided into mechanical and physicochemical
parts. Another classification of mineral processing leads to coal preparation and proc-
essing of mineral raw materials. These divisions are frequently the source of misun-
derstanding because there is a tendency to use different terms for the same phenom-
ena, parameters and properties. For example, the fraction of a particular component
which is transferred from the feed to a product of separation can be called recovery,
separation number, release degree, efficiency, transfer probability, and so on. In this
book an attempt was undertaken to treat all mineral processing operations as separa-
tion and four basic terms, yield, recovery, content, and separation feature will be used
for delineation, analysis, assessment, and comparison of separations and their results
 Introduction 11

hoping that in the future this will unify all branches of mineral processing as to its phi-
losophy and terminology.
The advances in mineral processing can be noticed in the papers and books pub-
lished in different countries. The best ones, written in English, still full of useful in-
formation are the works by Taggart (Handbook of mineral dressing, Wiley 1945),
Gaudin (Flotation, McGraw-Hill, 1957), Wills (Mineral processing technology, Per-
gamon 1979 and further editions), Kelly and Spottiswood (Introduction to mineral
processing, Wiley 1982), Leja (Surface chemistry of froth flotation, Plenum Press
1982), Wiess (chief ed., SME Mineral processing handbook, AIMME/SME, 1985),
Fuerstenau, Miller, and Kuhn (Chemistry of flotation, AIME/SME, 1985), Tarjan
(Mineral processing, Akademai Kiado 1986), Laskowski (Coal flotation and fine coal
utilization, Elsevier, 2001).
The goal of this book is to present the bases of mineral processing with emphasis
on treating all operations as separation processes having similar structure, which can
be subjected to the same procedure of delineation, analysis, and evaluation. The pre-
sent, most common treatment of mineral processing operations is shown in Fig. 3.

Comminution Upgrading
- flotation
- gravity
- magnetic
Classification - etc.

Final treatment
- drying
- sampling
- portioning
- etc.

Fig. 3. Typical treatment of mineral processing operations

while the treatment used in this book in Fig. 4: