Copper ore processing plant for sale
Crushing equipment , screening equipment , grinding equipment for copper ore processing solutions

SBM Machinery can offer a complete copper ore processing system for copper ore beneficiation for copper ore mine. The copper ore processing equipment covers the primary and secondary crushing stages, grinding, flotation and pressure filtration, as well as the pumping and conveying of processed copper ore.

The traditional method used at most mines involves the ore being broken and brought to the surface for crushing. A primary gyratory crusher is used to reduce dump material from up to 1500mm to below 200mm in size before conveying to stockpiles. Feeders and conveyors transport the ore to a two-stage dry crushing plant where two secondary crushers reduce the size to below 50mm and 5 tertiary crushers further reduce the ore to below 20mm, operating in closed circuit with vibrating screens. Copper ore crushing plant product is then conveyed to fill the fine ore bins, each one feeding six rod mill / twin ball mill / flotation sections, all operating in parallel. Certain sections are used for wet grinding of marginal ore to below 0.3mm followed by copper flotation using methods similar to those for the underground ore. Concentrate is pumped to the dewatering plant, while magnetite is removed from the tailings before thickening and pumping to Foskor for phosphate flotation.

A third secondary crusher feed stockpile is reserved for minus 200mm underground ore that can be diverted by means of a moveable chute and transfer conveyor. Underground ore is batched through the secondary crushing plant and directed to the fine ore bins. Each section is able to grind 6,000 Tpd of ore finer than 0.2mm before froth flotation.

Copper ore crushing & grinding plant equipment

There are two coarse ore stockpiles receiving material from the surface and underground crushers. Crushed ore is reclaimed by four vibrating feeders under each stockpile. The grinding circuit is comprised of two separate modules, each incorporating a Semi Autogenous Grinding (SAG) mill, oversize crushing technology, two stages of ball milling and froth flotation

The primary crusher reduces ore from the trucks to 8-inches or less. Two rubber belt conveyors pull this material directly into each SAG mill where it is combined with water and mill balls (as needed).

Copper ore is constantly flowing in and out of the SAG mills. The outflow passes through a set of vibrating screens and a water spray. The last screen has 10 mm x 20 mm slots in it. Anything that goes through this last screen or is washed off the bigger chunks by the water spray goes onto the ball mills. The oversized material is conveyed either directly back into the SAG mills, or it travels on a conveyor (the one closest to you and rising to the left in your image) to be stored in the "recycle pile" right.

The copper ore is transported from the stockpile to the surface through a vertical shaft and is then moved to storage bins in conveyors. From the storage bins, the ore reaches the copper ore grinding mills.

In the copper grinding mills, the ore is crushed into particles of less than 300mm and then ground to a slurry of less than 0.1mm. The slurry is then pumped to flotation plant where various minerals get separated.

Flotation is carried out in tanks called flotation cells. Different minerals get separated at different stages. The skimmed minerals are dried on disc filters.

Flotation

Flotation takes place in two parallel modules, each linked to its own grinding circuit. The flotation process aims to float a sulphide concentrate to recover the major copper and gold bearing minerals. (The circuits consist of pre-float, rougher, scavenger, cleaner, cleaner-scavenger and re-cleaner treatment stages). The final concentrate produced for each module assays 34-36 per cent copper and is pumped to a concentrate thickener. Final tailings from each module are pumped to a tails thickener for dewatering.

Froth flotation is considered to be the most widely used method for ore beneficiation. The process of froth flotation entails crushing and grinding the ore to a fine size. This fine grinding separates the individual mineral particles from the waste rock and other mineral particles. The grinding is normally done in water with the resultant slurry called the pulp. The pulp is processed in the flotation cells, which agitate the mixture and introduce air as small bubbles.

Concentrate Thickening and Filtration

Final concentrate from the flotation circuits is pumped to thickeners where it is thickened to an average underflow density of 60 per cent solids. Thickened concentrate is then pumped to concentrate storage tanks prior to treatment through the filtration circuit, using ceramic disc filters.

The filtered concentrate is discharged onto slow moving conveyor belts, each equipped with a weightometer to determine final production of concentrate. The concentrate is conveyed into a storage shed before loading and transporting to customers.

Dewatering, Magnetite production and tailings disposal

Concentrate slurry is pumped to thickeners, vacuum disc filters and a coal-fired rotary dryer that successively remove water to reach 8% residual moisture. Dryer product is weighed by a belt scale and sampled before conveying to the smelter receiving shed.

Flotation tailings from both autogenous and conventional circuits are pumped to the magnetic separation plant where rotating drum magnets extract 16% by weight of magnetite from the tailings slurry. Nine triple drum magnets are used for three stages of upgrading to produce up to 5000 Tpd of 98% pure magnetite concentrate. The concentrate is separated into two sizes by a rising current of water (elutriation). On average, 600 Tpd of magnetite fines report to classifier overflow, which is thickened, filtered and stockpiled prior to shipment to domestic heavy media consumers who use it for upgrading coal. The majority of the magnetite reports to a classifier underflow and then pumped either to drying paddocks for railing and export or to large magnetite storage dams, depending on sales commitments. Export magnetite is used for iron and steel production.

After magnetite removal, underground ore tailings flows to three parallel 90m diameter tailings thickeners for local water recovery and reuse, while the combined underflows are pumped to various points around the perimeter of a large tailings dam. The dam wall is maintained at a higher level by a beach of coarse solids. Fines flow to the central pond, where clear water is decanted by a siphon and stored in a return water dam for reuse in the process.

What our customers say:

" The copper ore processing equipment can process large scale ROM copper ore . " ---- India Customer

The market

SBM ore mineral crushing, screening, grinding equipment has been exported to many countries which includes China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Turkey, Israel, Burma, Jordan, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Korea, Azerbaijan, The UAE, Bhutan, Thailand, Lebanon, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Guinea, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Congo, Gabon, Angola, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Argentina, Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Haiti, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, Surinam, Australia, Russia and so on.

Back to Top