This project is upgrading a former chrome processing plant in South Africa. The original plant adopts a gravity separation process with a 360,000 t/a capacity. Still, problems such as low recovery rate and unstable product grade make it challenging to meet the enterprise's dual requirements for economy and product quality. Aiming at the above pain points, Xinhai Mining & Equipment customized the upgrade solution of 480,000tpa for the customer.
The upgraded plant takes underground mining ore and tailings stockpiled in the tailings storage as the primary raw material sources. It adopts the primary process of high-intensity magnetic separation, which significantly improves the yield and grade of chrome concentrate. Meanwhile, it also recovers platinum, palladium, and other precious metal elements, which significantly enhances the overall economic benefits of the plant and fully demonstrates Xinhai Mining's professional ability and customized service advantages in the field of mining services.
Commissioned by the client, Xinhai has systematically upgraded the original chrome ore processing plant in South Africa, including the design of the beneficiation process, equipment selection, and installation and commissioning services. According to the nature of the original ore, make full use of the original equipment, choose a reasonable and reliable process flow, use advanced and practical control technology, and save investment costs as much as possible.
1. Scope of Design
The processing plant of this project is divided into a magnetic separation plant and a flotation plant, and the design covers magnetic separation, flotation, filter press, dosing, power supply and distribution, pipeline network, office auxiliary systems, and other aspects. The magnetic separation plant has additional high-intensity magnetic separation, regrinding, and filtration systems based on the original crushing, screening, and grinding. In contrast, the flotation plant makes full use of the existing buildings and rationally arranges the flotation and filter-pressing facilities to maximize the use of resources.
Relying on years of experience in EPCM+O projects, Xinhai China integrates multi-disciplinary capabilities in ore dressing process, general planning, water supply and drainage, and civil design to comprehensively improve the operational efficiency and construction quality of the processing plant, which fully reflects its technical advantages and practical capabilities in system integration and customized design of ore dressing plants.
2. Ore Dressing Test
Through comprehensive mineral assay and testing and magnetic separation tests, we identified key parameters such as grinding fineness and magnetic field strength. Flotation tests, including two roughing, two sweeping, three concentrating, and two fine sweeping stages, yielded a Pt+Pd grade above 60, with Cr₂O₃ impurities at just 2.06%, meeting the required specifications.
Further optimization of chemicals during flotation tests revealed that the "magnetic first, then flotation" method is more effective than the reverse. These results provide a strong data foundation and technical basis for the project's process plan.
3. Beneficiation Process Design
The beneficiation process is determined based on two sources of raw material: Underground ore and stockpiled tailings from the original tailings storage facility.
Both types of material are ultimately pumped into the flotation system for platinum and palladium recovery.
✦Underground Ore Processing Flow:
The processes involved are crushing and screening, grinding and magnetic separation, a chrome concentrate concentration system, magnetic separation tailings regrinding, platinum and palladium flotation concentrate dehydration, Platinum-palladium flotation, and flotation concentrate dewatering.
✦Original Tailings Processing Flow:
The original tailings are pumped directly to the magnetic separation system after scrubbing and slurry adjustment in the original tailings storage, and the subsequent operation is the same as that of the underground mine.
✦Core Equipment: Ball mill, magnetic separator, flotation machine, hydrocyclone, thickener, and filter press.
✦This process combines the dual route of "magnetic separation + flotation," which recovers chrome concentrate on the one hand and efficiently extracts precious metals, platinum, and palladium on the other. It can reuse tailings, which improves the comprehensive utilization rate of resources. This process suits this comprehensive recycling project in South Africa, which contains multi-metallic chromite resources.
1. Resource reuse, responding to the trend of green mining
This project takes the original tailings as the processing object and successfully realizes the comprehensive recovery and reuse of tailings resources, reflecting Xinhai's technological advantages and environmental protection concepts in green mining and efficient resource utilization.
2. Multi-metal + precious metal joint recovery with high technical content
The ore contains a variety of valuable metals, such as chromium, platinum, palladium, etc., making it a typical multi-metal complex ore. Xinhai efficiently recovers chromite and successfully recovers rare precious metals such as platinum and palladium through the combined process of "magnetic separation + flotation", a difficult process with high technical content.
3. Innovative flotation process to overcome precious metal recovery problems
Flotation recovery of precious metals, platinum, and palladium is uncommon in the industry. After several rounds of beneficiation tests, Xinhai's project team determined that the optimal grinding fineness of -200 mm accounted for 90% of the total, effectively enhancing the recovery rate of flotation and maximizing the economic benefits.
4. Precise control of fine-grained flotation, scientific configuration of chemicals
The project adopts a fine-grained flotation process (-0.074mm accounts for 90%), and the chemical system is relatively complex. Xinhai's technical team accurately proportioned the substances according to the nature of the ore to ensure efficient and stable flotation separation.
5. Successful one-time commissioning, demonstrating the system integration and delivery capability
The successful one-time commissioning at the project site, with smooth equipment operation and standardized product quality, fully demonstrates Xinhai's full-process delivery capability and rich experience in international EPCM+O projects, from design, manufacturing, to installation and commissioning.
Summary
In the 480,000tpa chrome ore + tailings recovery platinum and palladium beneficiation plant upgrading project in South Africa, Xinhai provided one-stop services including process design, equipment manufacturing, installation, and commissioning. The project was successfully commissioned in one go, and qualified products were produced smoothly. The upgrade also introduced automation design concepts, laying the foundation for the subsequent construction of intelligent mines and fully demonstrating Xinhai's professional strength and efficient execution capability in upgrading old plants and tailings reuse!
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