Definition of
Beneficiation
Definition:
through the physical or chemical diversity of minerals, separating ore into
valuable substances and waste (gangue) by any of a variety of mining equipment,
to enrich the useful minerals.
Usually
run-of-mine ores are composed of useful minerals and gangues. Grade of useful minerals is not high
enough for industrial purpose. Beneficiation is to purify and enrich them to
make them concentrates.
e.g.
Beach placer (beach sand) contains a variety of minerals, such
as quartz, zircon sand, ilmenite, rutile, garnet, monazite, hematite, hornblende, silimanite,
etc. If the grade of zircon is relatively high and has a value of market
development, we can use washing, spiral separation, magnetic separation, flotation,
and other processes, to move other minerals, especially the radioactive monazite,
and get upgraded zircon concentrate.
