cases
Xinhai Mining completed the feasibility study, preliminary design and construction drawing design, and supplied the main equipment, for a 900,000 t/a spodumene processing plant in Yibin, Sichuan. The plant treats purchased ore from three sources — Australia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe — at an average head grade around 1.5%, delivered pre-crushed at 5–10 mm, so the design starts from the grinding stage.
Full-Plant Design Without Testwork: With no mineral processing testwork performed, the flowsheet was engineered around blended multi-source feed and covered the mineral processing, civil, electrical, general layout, water supply and drainage, dust removal and ventilation disciplines — from raw material storage and the main plant through dewatering facilities, the concentrate store, thickeners, compressor room, substations and all water systems.
Feeding and Two-Stage Grinding: Purchased fines (−10 mm) are delivered by belt conveyor and distributed by belt spreading; a grate ball mill with a hydrocyclone group forms the primary stage and an overflow ball mill with hydrocyclones plus six-unit high-frequency screens closes the second stage, grinding to 60% passing 200 mesh.
Magnetic Separation and Desliming: Ground pulp passes a drum magnetic separator and a high-gradient magnetic separator to remove iron-bearing impurities, then is deslimed through two stages of hydrocyclones ahead of flotation.
Mica and Spodumene Flotation: A single mica roughing stage removes mica first; the spodumene circuit then applies two roughing, two scavenging and three cleaning stages to raise the concentrate above the 5% design grade.
Concentrate and Tailings Handling: The two concentrate streams are each dewatered by thickening and filter pressing; tailings are classified by hydrocyclone and dewatering screen, then thickened and filter-pressed, with a dedicated water-treatment thickener cleaning circuit water for reuse.
All construction drawings were issued in November 2022, three and a half months after design started, and the plant was commissioned in September 2023, producing spodumene concentrate above the 5% design grade at a plant built for 900,000 t/a (3,000 t/d) of blended feed from three ore sources.
Share your project details and our engineers will get back to you shortly.
CHAT
MESSAGE
