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By Robert R. French

Beneficiation of low-grade nonmetalliferous mineral deposits by electronic color sorting is currently undergoing a period of rapid development. For those deposits in which the specific gravity, strength, soundness, and electric and magnetic properties of the ore and gangue are similar, the possibility of separation by color, reflectivity, or fluorescence offers hope for the utilization of much poorer quality ore than previously thought possible. For those ores in which consistency of color is required or for which a dry process is preferred, the electronic color sorter is particularly adaptable. Tests performed late in 1966 and reported herein are the result of the continued interest in the dry beneficiation of gypsum and the development of higher capacity color sorting machines. The ore used was a discarded fraction that consisted of – 1 ¼ -in, to + 3/8 -in. ore containing 63.1 to 71.4% (average 67.7%) gypsum. This material was contaminated by various amounts of both carbonate rock and shale, but no pretreatment was performed other than screening to closer size limits before electronic color sorting.

Jan 4, 1969

[Ferro Alloys Producers Association The South Africa Institute of Mining and Metallurgy www.saimm.co.za Mintek www.mintek.co.za Eskom www.eskom.co.za ]

Jan 1, 2004

By R. L. Andelin, J. D. Knight, M. Kahn

Self-diffusion in single-crystal tungsten and diffusion of rhenium tracer in single-crystal tungsten have been measured over the temperature range 2660° to 3230°C by direct sectioning and radio-chemical analysis of W185 and Re183 and Re184 tracers. The initial radioactive layer was produced on the diffusion specimens by bombardment with 9.0-mev deuterons. Diffusion heating of the samples in high vacuum was accomplished by induction heating. Temperatures were measured by optical pyrometry, and the system was calibrated ALTHOUGH a considerable body of experimental information has been accumulated on self-diffusion in solids, the major part of the detailed work has by reference to the melting points of tantalum (2996°C), molybdenum (2620°C), niobium (2468°C), and rhodium (1966°C). The diffusion coefficients for the two systems, obtained by least-squares analyses of the data, are well-represented by the equations thus far dealt with relatively low-melting systems. Diffusion studies on the high-melting elements niobium,1 tantalum,2,3 and tungsten4'5 have been limited to polycrystalline material, for which data interpretation and theoretical analysis are sometimes difficult. Only recently, a study has been made with single-crystal molybdenum.6 The present work deals with the measurement of self-diffusion in single-crystal tungsten at temperatures approaching the melting point (3410°c).7 Since the method chosen for producing the radioactive tracer layer-bombardment with deuterons—produced detectable isotopes of rhenium as well as of tungsten, the diffusion of rhenium was measured also.

Jan 1, 1965

By Kazuyo Yokoyama

New environmental assessment model based on the Waste Input-Output analysis has been developed and applied for the "Landfill mining activity". "Landfill mining" implies the digging up of the landfilled wastes, the recovery of valuable material and energy resources and, thus, the reuse of the saved space as a new landfill site. In this study, the landfilled wastes are assumed to be treated by the gasification/melting processes. Two kinds of reactors, the fluidized bed type (FB) and the shaft furnace type (SF), have been considered in this work as the typical gasification/melting processes adopted in Japan. In FB, the dug-up wastes are heated in the sand fluidized bed zone under reducing atmosphere, Fe and Al are recovered in the metallic form, and then, the gasification/melting of residues is made in the second zone. In SF, the waste is charged in the high temperature coke bed, and the gas is recovered together with molten metal and slag. Both processes generate electric power by the recovered heat and fly ash as waste to landfill. It has been found in this study that the both processes can reduce the total volume of waste and save the available landfill space. SF seems to have higher potential for decreasing volume of wastes because of less emission than FB while FB has great benefit to recover metallic Fe and Al individually. The results of scenario analysis have also indicated that the landfill mining activity is effective for sustainable management of landfill sites.

Jan 1, 2006

By Fernando N, Guang LX

Brown coal in Victoria in spite of its substantial reserves is not utilized greatly because of its high moisture content(-65% w/w). Transportation and handling costs of raw brown coal, on an available energy basis are so expensive that 93% of production is burnt for electricity generation on or adjacent to the coal deposit in Victoria. With direct firing of moist brown coal in power stations, approximately 20% of the gross calorific value of the fuse is used to evaporate the water contained in the coal. This energy is lost as vapour with the flue gas which is vented to the atmosphere. Also there is a 25% increase in flue gas volume and the size and cost of most of the units through which it passes must be appropriately larger. Since there are large quantities of water present the flame temperature is significantly reduced. For zero excess air and no air pre-heating the theoretical flame temperatures are: 609'o wow moisture 1450¦C 40% ª ª ª 1790¦C ZOO ª ª ª 1990¦C As a result of this there is a reduction in radiant heat transfer leading to a requirement for a two fold increase in radiant tube area. A boiler of much greater size and cost is thus required to house the additional tubes. Figure 1 illustrates the relative sizes of a boiler fired with 60% moisture brown coal with a boiler or similar output fed with a British bituminous coal, 14% moisture.

Jan 1, 1989

By Peter Zhang, Daniel Su

Following the first longwall excavation at a deep-cover gas well site, the pre-mining modeling prediction of longwallinduced casing deformations in the fully cemented production casing were in excellent agreement with post-mining Caliper survey results. However, after second panel mining, the post-mining Caliper survey revealed a large plastic deformation near the top of the Pittsburgh Seam. The focus of this paper is to identify the possible cause of such an anomalous deformation. Very high longwall-induced casing stress near a thick claystone layer at 23 feet above the Pittsburgh seam horizon was identified as the primary cause. Leaving the production casing uncemented or using softer cementing material between intermediate and production casings is identified as the best practice.

Feb 1, 2024

By Fred W. Shultz

The process engineer is familiar with the in any methods employed in the past for analyzing various materials. These include panning. eyeballing, and wet chemistry. Of those mentioned only wet chemistry has been and will continue to be a standard measure for the elemental content in a given material. However, wet chemistry, by the very nature of the method, can be excessively time-consuming and thus reducing obviously the number of samples that may be processed in a given period. The analysis by X-ray, in most cases, requires nothing more than assurance that the sample is in a suitable state for presentation to the X-ray spectrometer.

Jan 1, 1964

By William L. Rice

This Bureau of Mines Open Pile Report on cobalt is one of a series of minerals availability commodity deposit abstracts. Nonconfidential information from the Minerals Availability Program data base covering domestic and foreign cobalt properties and deposits has been abstracted for use in his report. Abstracts include applicable data on location, published reserves and resources, geology, mine and beneficiation systems, and operation information.

Jan 1, 2011

By Pedro Dominguéz S

La exposición apunta al doble tratamiento metalúrgico para la recuperación del oro, cobre y plata contenidos en los minerales de la mina Calpas. Para ello, el conjunto de vetas de las minas,muestra las zonas en las que predomina el cuarzo y la pirita con oro y algunas trazas de cobre. En este punto, surge la cianuración como tratamiento para beneficiar aquellos minerales con cobre, como aquellos que no lo tienen y en el que las instalaciones de plantas de beneficio permitirá una producción mayor a su tonelada.

Jun 20, 1954

By Ron Tluczek

[Power Point Presentation]

Jan 1, 2006

By R. F. Mitchell, G. F. Dillon, A. F. Armington

In this paper the present methods of boron preparation are discussed with emphasis on the iodide intermediate. Several methods of boron triiodide preparation were investigated, the most satisfactory method being the preparation from the elements. A yield of 60 pct based on iodine is found for this method. Zone-refining, sublinzation, distillation, and fractional-recrystallization results are given for the boron triiodide, with distillation producing the best results. Several methods of decomposition are also discussed. The purity of the resulting iodide boron approximates the puritjl of the best available bromide boron, ELEMENTAL boron has been suggested as a possible high-temperature semiconductor by several workers,' but has never been exploited as a device material. The principal difficulty with boron is the unavailability of pure crystalline material from which accurate information on electrical properties could be obtained. Most boron crystals presently produced are very imperfect in structure and of questionable purity, particularly in relation to carbon content. Several methods of boron purification have been reported in the past few years, all of which produce material with a purity better than 99.0 pct. Most of these methods have been the subject of a recent review by Starks' and will not be elaborated upon in this report. However, of all the purification methods reported, only those using halide intermediates produce a purity approaching that usually required for electronic applications. The bromide intermediate has been most used for the preparation of high-purity boron.'y3 This material is easily prepared from the elements and can be effectively purified by distillation and decomposed by hydrogen reduction. The resulting product contains a trace of silicon, and an uncertain amount of carbon, believed to be approximately 100 ppm. It has been recently reported by Russian workers that high-purity boron can be produced using an iodide intermediate.' In the work cited, boron is reported free of spectro-scopically determined impurities, but the reported detection limits are quite high (- 100 ppm). In addition, no data is given on the carbon content of the product. In the present paper, boron triiodide was chosen as the intermediate for several reasons. First, carbon tetraiodide, which could be a major impurity, is reported to be unstable above 200" and hence could be easily separated from the boron triiodide by its decomposition, since temperatures greater than this are attained during the purification process. The low melting point (45°C) and boiling point (20B°C) and the relatively high vapor pressure of boron triiodide should allow the application of any physical purification technique to the material. The possibility of a lower decomposition temperature than that used for the bromide process is another advantage which might cut down extraneous contamination. The iodide, however, does have certain disadvantages when compared with the bromide, the production cost being the most significant. This is the result of a higher halide-to-boron weight ratio, which means more intermediate must be employed. The cost of the starting material is also greater for the iodide. This cost could be considerably reduced however, by recycling the iodine byproduct. Epitaxial growth of boron, which is probably the best method of producing junctions, should be possible with either the bromide or the iodide as the intermediate. However, this has been attempted only on a limited scale up to the present time because of the unavailability of good crystals. The authors have been relatively successful in laying down a heterotaxy of boron on silicon, however. This will be reported at a later date. Several crystalline modifications have been reported for boron, four of which are now believed to be real.' These are the a! and 0 rhombohedral and the a, and 0 tetragonal. In general, the a! rhombohedral is the low-temperature form and the B rhombohedral is the high-temperature form. The tetragonal structures are detected between 1000"

Jan 1, 1964

By Gino Merello

Dado que los cargadores frontales LHD son los equipos encargados de extraer gran parte de la producción en la mina subterránea El Teniente, se justifica el estudio de confiabilidad, mantenibilidad y disponibilidad que permita optimizar la actual estrategía de mantenimiento. En ese sentido, el presente texto señala la optimización de la estrategia de mantenimiento a través de la metodología de revisar continuamente los parámetros básicos del motor diesel y la condición físico-química del lubricante de motor. También se monitoreó con una frecuencia de dos días el estado general de los equipos, con el fin de detectar prematuramente algún tipo de daño que se derive de la implementación de la nueva estrategia.

Jun 1, 2014

By C. S. Ek

Tests have been performed to recover silver and lead from residues produced after a super-hot leaching in a zinc hydrometallurgical plant operating with jarosite precipitation. When this residue is leached in ammoniaammonium sulfate or in diethylenetriamine solutions, lead dissolution is not complete and its recovery from the aqueous solutions is either difficult, due to the operating conditions, either expensive due to the amount of added reagents. In both cases, silver is partly dissolved, partly left in a new residue still containing lead and baryum sulfates. The best treatment seems to include a selective flotation producing first a silver concentrate assaying about I % Ag, then a 50 % lead concentrate collecting the baryum salts, and a final quartz-gypsum tailing. Metal recoveries can reach 50 % and 80 %, respectively.

Jan 1, 1989

By S. J. Porter, M. T. McRae

The new tunnel at Genting Sempah is part of a privately funded infrastructure projectthat involves duplicating the existing highway extending from the Gombok Toll Plaza near Kuala Lumpur to Karak, in Malaysia. The 60 km long tollway includes an 800 m long, two-lane highway tunnel with excavated dimensions of 10.5 m wide by 8 m high. The majority of the tunnel extends through slightly to moderately weathered, moderately to highly jointed quartz porphyry. Excavation of the tunnel was performed using drill and blast methods and the primary tunnel support consists of rock dowels and shotcrete except for short sections adjacent to the portals where steel sets were utilized. A portion of the tunnel encountered sheared and altered material that was successfully supported using rock dowels and shotcrete. The final lining for the tunnel consists of mesh and fiber reinforced shotcrete. The flexible nature of the primary support and shotcrete final lining resulted in considerable cost savings and expedient construction methods.

Jan 1, 1997

By C. G. Dunn

THE present note, which was given in the form of a Research in Progress item,' traces the origin of secondary recrystallization grains produced on annealing a cold rolled bicrystal specimen. The investigation began with the realization that a recently acquired conception for the origin of secondary grains produced on annealing cold rolled single-crystal specimens might require modifications for the case of polycrystalline materials. The stated conception2,3 begins with several conditions to be met by primary recrystallization: 1—a primary re-crystallization structure to consist of many small primaries and relatively few large primaries (diam- eters two or three times the average); 2—a primary recrystallization texture to consist of one strong preferred orientation or component and one or more weak components; and 3—a primary recrystalliza-tion structure-texture combination with some of the large primaries belonging to the weak components of the texture. When these conditions occur, some of the large primaries from the weak components of the texture

Jan 1, 1955

By George S. Koch

A statistical analysis of silver assay data from rotary-drill-hole cut-tings and diamond-drill-hole cores from the Round Mountain prospect, Custer County, Colo., demonstrates several useful methods for estimating grades and tonnages of ore from the drilling of wide-spaced holes in disseminated deposits of precious metals. A new method of are appraisal is introduced which estimates grade and tonnage of are by calculating convex hulls (smallest convex polygons) for sample points with assay values above specified cutoff grades. Analyses of variance compare the consistency of data from rotary-and diamond-drill holes, from rotary-drill holes sampled at 2-and 4-foot intervals, from two methods of sample preparation, and from atomic-absorption and fire assaying. Evidently, data from the two types of drill holes, from holes sampled at the two intervals, and from different methods of preparation are in agreement. Atomic-absorption silver values are consistently lower than fire-assay silver values.

Jan 1, 1971

By Roderick I. L. Guthrie, Donghui Li, Mihaiela Isac, Luis Calzado

The HSBC is an ideal process for the production of BMG strips. The purpose of the present work was to investigate the casting of Ca-based, bulk amorphous strips. The possibility of casting three Ca-based alloys (60Ca-20Mg-20Al, 60Ca-15Mg-10Al-15Zn and 55Ca-15Mg-10Al-15Zn- 5Cu (at.%).) was investigated, using the HSBC simulator. Numerical simulation and mathematical modeling were used to predict temperature variations and cooling rates, under different interfacial gaseous atmospheres (helium and air) near the meniscus region. Given the critical cooling rates and glass temperatures needed to be reached for the vitrification of the respective alloys, this leads to predictions of the critical thicknesses possible with this novel casting process. To validate our predictions, these alloys were then prepared and cast onto the sand-blasted, solid copper substrate mould of the HSBC simulator. The possibility of producing Ca-based metallic glassy strips via the HSBC processes was confirmed, using optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Scanning Electron Microscopy, to characterize the glassy properties of the cast strips. It was found that the HSBC process would be able to provide sufficient cooling to form amorphous strips for the 60CA-15Mg-10Al-15Zn and 55Ca-15Mg- 10Al-15Zn-5Cu alloys, but not the 60Ca-20Mg-20Al alloy.

Jan 1, 2014

By Robert R. Tarver

A long history of gold production at Nome, Alaska has resulted in long term interest in the nearshore environment as a production target. Mining by Western Gold Exploration and Mining Company offshore of Nome yielded approximately 100,000 troy ounces of gold in the period 1986 through 1990. This study was designed to determine the relationship between heavy minerals, sediments, and gold concentrations which occur in the upper meter of sediment offshore of Nome. Standard procedures were implemented for grain size analysis, heavy mineral separations, and heavy mineral frequency determination.

Jan 1, 1991

By J. D. Lindner, Gene E. Roark

Waterflooding operations in the Langston-Kleiner field. Young County, Tex., are described. Widespread application of formation fracturing has been practiced in both producing and injection wells. Field performance data arc cited which indicate than no detrimental effect on sweep efficiencies and that probable benefits in imectivily have resulted from the fracture treatments. I N T R O D U C I O N This paper is a report on a waterflood operation which is being carried out in the Lanpston-Kleiner field located in Young County, Tex. The oil reservoir aflected by this flood operation occurs in a Strawn sand member at an approximate depth of 3.550 ft subsurl'ace. The operators of' the project are Kleiner Estate. Turncr. Fiske. and West who are hereinafter collectively referred to as the Operators. Although the operation is unusual in several respects, the distinctive feature of this flood has been the widespread application of hydraulic formation fracturing treatments as a means to improve productivity and injectivity of the wells. It shall he the purpose of this paper to present basic information regarding the reservoir characteristics. op- craling practices, and waterflood behavior so that conclusions may be drawn concerning the effects which the fracture treatments have had on the performance of this water flood to datc. DEVELOP MENT Development of the 3,550 ft Strawn sand reservoir occurred during 1951 and 1952. The early development occurred on the Langston and Davis leases which arc in the northern region of the Operators' holdings and the wells were drilled on 20-acre proration units according to the field rules. However, studies of the economics of this program. coupled with the decision to proceed with pressure maintenance by water injection. resulted in the adoption of wider spacing in the later stages of development. This variation in spacing is apparent upon inspection of Fig. I upon which only the 3,550-ft Strawn sand producing and injection wells have been located on the Operators' properties. The development to the north of the operators leases is Ihe Garvey Strawn field and that to the south is the Taylor Strawn field. It wits determined that unitization of the leases to he involved in the waterflood program was not feasihle. Consequently. a system of offset injection wells, or lease line injection wells, was adopted from place to place as required to protect correlative rights in the program. This resulted in a dispersed array of injection and producing wells with relatively close proximity of wells along lease line areas and wider spacing toward

Jan 1, 1956

By T. P. Katakwa

The utilization of software is now inherent to virtually every activity along the mining value chain. However, apart from the software survey done by Gibbs in the 1990s and work on the extent of diffusion of information and communication technology (ICT) in the South African platinum sector by Mugodi and Fleming in 2003, the nature and extent of software utilization in the South African mining industry has never been evaluated. The Mine Planning, Optimisation and Valuation (MPOV) Research Group in the School of Mining Engineering, University of Witwatersrand, therefore initiated a project to collate and analyse the current utilization of software in the South African mining industry. This was done through the development of a web-based database of the relevant software. Snowball sampling was used to collect the data because the South African mining industry is diverse and software utilization is fragmented across and within the sectors of the industry. The data was then organized into distinct categories so that the information from a variety of sources could be evaluated on the same basis. A beta version of the database can be accessed online through a user-friendly front-end platform at http://db.mining.wits.ac.za. The database is expected to help at least 13 educational institutions with decisions on facilities and training that are vital to the education of mining and mining-related professionals. Exploration, mining, and consulting companies will also benefit from information in the database relating to availability and useful combinations of software solutions. The database is also strategic to software providers by providing a better understanding of their respective relative market share along the mining value chain. An analysis of the data collated in this research shows that about 77% of the software users are mining companies, 17% are consulting companies, 3% are mineral exploration companies, and the rest are software providers and educational institutions. The software used in the South African mining industry is largely provided by Gemcom Software International, MineRP Solutions, and MRM Mining Services. CAE Mining, who in 2010 acquired the Datamine Group providing Datamine software, is also widely acknowledged as a major software supplier in South Africa, but data from them had not been obtained at the time of producing the beta version of the database due to proprietary constraints. The work reported in this paper is part of an MSc research study in the School of Mining Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. Keywords mine planning, mining, value chain, software, database, South African mining industry, utilization.

Jun 1, 2013