Mineral Industry

Mineral Processing 2 ME 365

Prof.Dr. Ahmed A.S. Seifelnassr

Professor of Mineral Processing
Dept. of Mining Engineering
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering
Suez University
Suez, Egypt
E-mail:[email protected]
 Lecture 5- Dense Medium Separation (DMS)

• Dense medium separation (DMS) is also known as heavy medium separation

(HMS) or the sink-and-float process.
• It has two principal applications:
• 1- The pre-concentration of minerals, that is, the rejection of gangue prior to
grinding for final liberation, and
• 2- In coal preparation to produce a commercially graded end-product, that is,
clean coal being separated from the heavier shale or high-ash coal.
• Dense medium separation is possible with ores in which the minerals are
coarsely aggregated.
• If the values are finely disseminated throughout the host rock, then a suitable
density difference between the crushed particles cannot be developed by
coarse crushing.
Dense Media Separation, DMS
• Dense Media Separation, DMS (continued)

• The simplest of all gravity processes.

• In laboratory, heavy liquids of suitable density are used, minerals lighter
than the liquid float, those denser than it sink. Solutions may be used.
• Since most of the liquids used in the laboratory testing are expensive,
toxic, or poisonous.
• In industrial separation, the dense medium is a thick suspension (pulp
of some fine heavy solid in water), which behaves as a heavy liquid.
• The Dense Medium (Heavy Liquids)

Heavy Liquids, HL (laboratory liquids)

• Organic liquids are used for DMS testing. They are volatile, give off toxic
fumes, poisonous, and have high viscosity.
• They must be handled with extreme care in an adequately ventilated area.
• HL laboratory testing may be performed to: 1) determine the feasibility of
DMS on a particular ore, 2) mineral separation (mineralogy).
• The aim is to separate the ore samples into a series of density fractions.
• Tetrabromoethane (TBE) (sp.gr. 2.96), bromoform (sp. gr. 2.89) and carbon
tetrachloride (sp. gr. 1.58), may be used as heavy organic liquids.
• In between densities can be obtained by diluting the HL with carbon
tetrachloride (sp. gr. 1.58), or white spirit (sp.gr. 0.78).
• For densities up to 3.3, diiodomethane (sp.gr. 3.3) is useful, diluted as
required with triethyl orthophosphate.
• Aqueous solutions of sodium polytungstate have certain advantages over organic
liquids, such as being virtually nonvolatile, nontoxic, and of lower viscosity, and
densities of up to 3.1 can easily be achieved.
• For higher density separations, Clerici solution (thallium formate
thallium malonate solution) allows separation at densities up to
specific gravity 4.2 at 20C or 5.0 at 90C.
• Separations of up to specific gravity 18 can be achieved by the use of
magneto-hydrostatics, that is, the utilization of the supplementary
weighting force produced in a solution of a paramagnetic salt or
ferrofluid when situated in a magnetic field gradient.
• This type of separation is applicable primarily to nonmagnetic minerals
with a lower limiting particle size of about 50 μm.
• A modification have been described to the Franz Isodynamic
Separator(lecture 6) for use with magnetic fluids.
The Dense Medium (Suspensions)

Suspensions (industrial liquids)

• To produce a suitable suspension, use fine, high specific gravity solid

particles, and gently agitate the medium.
• The solids should be hard, easy to be removed from the mineral surface
by washing, and easy recoverable.
• Solids must resist chemical attack such as corrosion or dissolution.
The Dense Medium (Suspensions)

• Galena (sp.gr. 7.8), soft, can give a bath density of about 4.0, and can
be recovered by flotation. It is soft (tends to slime), easy oxidized (may
not be recovered by flotation.)
• Barite (sp.gr. 4.6), soft, can be recovered by flotation.
• Ferrosilicon (sp.gr. 6.7-6.9), p. size from 30-95% -45 μm, can give a bath
density of 3.3-4.0 g/cubic cm, recovered by mag. separation.
• Magnetite (sp.gr. 5.1), gives a bath of about 2.5 sp. gr., recovered by
mag. Separation.
• The most widely used medium for metalliferous ores is now
ferrosilicon, while magnetite is used in coal preparation.
• Recovery of medium in both cases is by magnetic separation.
 heavy liquids

homogeneous liquids suspenions

• quartz 1,4
aqueous solutions organic liquids • barite 1,8
• magnetite 2,0
• Clerici* 5,0 • methylene iodide 3,31 • ferrosilicon 2,3
• Klein** 3,19 • bromoform 2,89
• ZnCl2 2,07 • methylene bromide 2,48 magnetic liquids
• CaCl2 1,65 • pentachloroethan 1,67
dielectric liquids
• carbontetrachloride 1,59
 SEPARATING VESSELS
1- Gravitational Vessels
Wemco cone separator Capacity 500 t/h, dia. up to 6.0 meters, feed size up to
10 cm. Float overflows, sink removed by pump or compressed air.

Wemco cone separator: (a) with torque-flow-pump sinks removal, and (b) with compressed-air sinks
removal
Dense media (DM) drum separator: (a) side view, and (b) end view.
Capacity 450 t/h, up to 4.3 m dia. and 6.0 m long, feed up to 30 cm.
The float over-floats out, The sink is removed through the action of lifters
fixed to the inside walls of the rotating drum.
Two-compartment DM drum separator.
Feed

Sink

Float

Separation in drum gravity separator

 2- Centrifugal Separators
They provide a high centrifugal force and a low viscosity in the medium,
enabling much finer separations to be achieved than in gravitational separators.

Density gradients inside a dense medium cyclone

Vorsyl Separator
LARCODEMS (Large Coal Dense Medium Separator)
It was developed to treat a wide size range of coal (0.5 −100 mm) at high capacity,
about 250 t/h, inclined at 30 degrees to the horizontal. It has also been used in
concentrating iron ore.
Feed medium required is introduced under pressure.
Dyna Whirlpool Separator
Similar to LARCOMEMS, but is used for treating fine coal, diamond, fluorspar, tin, and
lead-zinc ores.
Feed size range is 0.5-30 mm.
The capacity of the separator can be as high as 100 t/ h , and it has some advantages over
the DM cyclone. Apart from the reduced wear, which not only decreases maintenance
costs but also maintains performance of the unit, operating costs are lower, since only the
medium is pumped.
Tri-Flo Separator
It can be regarded as two Dyna Whirlpool separators in series. It is used for the treatment
of coal, metallic, and non-metallic ores.
The device can be operated with two media of differing densities in order to produce sink
products of different densities.
It produces a float and two sink products with slightly different densities.
Stages of Dense Media Separation
The stages in dense media separation operation are:
• 1) Preparation of a suitable feed.
• 2) Washing the feed to wet the feed and get rid of fines.
• 3) The feed is introduced to a D M Bath containing the dense media.
• The separated products are drained to recover the dense media.
• The products are water sprayed to remove slimes and diluted media
from the products surfaces.
• Washed products are conveyed to separate storages.
• Cleaning, reconstituting, and returning the clean dense media to the
separation bath.
• See the next pages
Dense Media Flowsheet
Typical DMS circuit
• LABORATORY HEAVY LIQUID TESTS
• Laboratory testing may be performed on ores to assess the suitability of
DMS (and other gravity methods) and to determine the economic
separating density.
• Liquids covering a range of densities in incremental steps are prepared,
and the representative sample of crushed ore is introduced into the
liquid of highest density.
• The floats product is removed and washed and placed in the liquid of
next lower density, whose float product is then transferred to the next
lower density and so on.
• The sinks product is finally drained, washed, and dried, and then
weighed, and analysed together with the final floats product, to give the
density distribution of the sample by weight (Figure below).
Heavy liquid testing
Heavy Liquid Test Results on Tin Ore Sample
• It can be seen from columns 3 and 7 of the table (above) that if a
separation density of 2.75 was chosen, then 68.48% of the material, being
lighter than 2.75, would be discarded as a float product, and only 3.78% of
the tin would be lost in this fraction. Conversely, 96.22% of the tin would
be recovered into the sink product (i.e., 100 - 3.78), which accounts for
31.52% of the original total feed weight.
• The choice of optimum separating density must be made on economic
grounds. In the example shown in Table 11.1, the economic impact of
rejecting 68.48% of the feed to DMS on downstream performance must
be assessed. The smaller throughput will lower grinding and
concentration operating costs, the impact on grinding energy and steel
costs often being particularly high.
• Table below shows the results of heavy liquid tests performed on a coal
sample.
• The coal was separated into the density fractions shown in column 1, and
the weight fractions and ash contents are tabulated in columns 2 and 3,
respectively.
• The weight percent of each product is multiplied by the ash content to give
the ash units (column 4) (same calculation as “units” in previous Table).
• The total floats and sinks products at the various separating densities
shown in column 5 are tabulated in columns 6 - 11.
• To obtain the cumulative floats at each separation density, columns 2 and 4
are cumulated from top to bottom to give columns 6 and 7, respectively.
• Column 7 is then divided by column 6 to obtain the cumulative percent ash
(column 8).
• Cumulative sink ash is obtained in essentially the same manner, except
that columns 2 and 4 are cumulated from bottom to top to give columns
9 and 10, respectively.
• The results are plotted in Figure below as typical washability curves.
• Suppose an ash content of 12% is required in the coal product. It can be
seen from the washability curves that such a coal would be produced at
a yield of 55% (cumulative percent floats), and the required density of
separation is 1.465.
Heavy liquid test results on a coal sample
Typical coal washability curves.
The difficulty of the separation in terms of operational control is dependent
mainly on the amount of material present in the feed that is close to the
required density of separation. The amount of near-density material present
is sometimes regarded as being the weight of material in the range +/-0.1
or+/- .05 of the separating RD. Table 11.3 can be used to indicate the type of
separator that could effect the separation in practice
Table 11.3 takes no account of the particle size of the material , although some idea of the
effective particle size range of gravity separators can be gained from Figure 11.14. The
throughput of the plant must also be taken into account with respect to the type of separator
chosen.
EFFICIENCY OF DMS
Partition Curve
The efficiency of separation can be represented by the slope of a partition or Tromp curve

Partition or Tromp curve.

The probable error of separation or the Ecart probable (Ep) is defined as half
the difference between the density where 75% is recovered to sinks and that
at which 25% is recovered to sinks, that is, from the above Figure . The density
at which 50% of the particles report to sinks is shown as the effective density
of separation. This density of separation is referred to as the RD50 or ρ50
where the 50 refers to 50% chance of reporting
to sinks (or floats).
Determination of Partition Coefficient for Vessel Separating Coal
from Shale.
Organic Efficiency
• This term is often used to express the efficiency of coal preparation
plants.
• It is defined as the ratio (normally expressed as a percentage) between
the actual yield of a desired product and the theoretical possible yield at
the same ash content.
• For instance, if the coal, whose washability data are plotted in previous
Figure (coal washability curve) , produced an operating yield of 51% at an
ash content of 12%, then, since the theoretical yield at this ash content is
55%, the organic efficiency is equal to 51/55 or 92.7%.