Recently, SLon Centrifugal Separator has been successfully used in a large-scale single-series multi-metal concentrating mill in Yunnan to improve the quality and efficiency of fine-grained low and medium grade tin ore processing.
The low and medium grade tin ore in this plant has a fine particle size, with -400 mesh accounting for nearly 80%. Conventional technology is difficult to further enrich and recover the tin, resulting in a low tin recovery rate. The project team started scientific and technological research in 2021, using the SLon centrifugal separator developed by SLon to make scientific experiments on low and medium grade tin ore, and finally determined the one stage rougher and scavenger separation process. When the tin grade of the ore is 1~2%, the tin concentrate grade can be obtained above 3.50%, and the recovery rate is about 80%, and the tin grade of tailings is below 0.50%. The low and medium grade ore is converted into qualified tin-rich ore, realizing the production of tin-rich ore and the re-selection of low and medium grade tin ore.
Starting from mid-July 2022, the project team has successively used 18 SL-2400 centrifuges to carry out industrial tests on site. After several months of debugging and production, the on-site mineral processing indicators were significantly higher than the test indicators. In case that the average tin grade in the ore was 1.99%, the average grade of tin concentrate can reach 6.84%, the average grade of tin in tailings drops to 0.44%, and the average tin recovery rate is as high as 83.40%. It creates more than 30 million yuan in revenue for customers every year, and is highly recognized by customers.
Tin is one of the earliest metals used by humans and one of the most widely used metals in industry. It has excellent properties such as soft texture, low melting point, strong malleability, strong plasticity and non-toxicity. It is mainly used to make solder and tin-plated sheets, alloys, chemical products and etc., and are widely used in electronics, information, electrical appliances, chemicals, metallurgy, building materials, machinery, food packaging, atomic energy and aerospace industries. Separation of tin by conventional technology mainly adopts the methods of flotation and gravity separation, but recovering tin from tin fine sludge is a worldwide beneficiation problem.
In response to this problem, SLon jointly tackled the problem with industry, academia and research, and developed the SL series centrifugal separator. The centrifugal drum rotates horizontally, generating a radial and evenly distributed centrifugal force field on the inner surface of the drum. The slurry rotates under the drive of the centrifugal drum, and the large specific gravity particles in the spiral slurry flow are weakly turbulent. Under the combined action of the flow film and the centrifugal force field, the small specific gravity particles are thrown out close to the inner surface of the drum, achieving selective separation of mineral particles of different densities. This equipment has been widely used in the sorting, recovery and refining operations of fine-grained black, non-ferrous and precious rare metal minerals. It is of great significance to improve the comprehensive utilization rate of mineral resources, simplify the mineral processing process, and improve the economic and social benefits of the mine.
