MINERAL DRESSING AND CHEMICAL METALLURGY COMBINE TO PROCESS DIFFICULT-TO-TREAT ORES.

Difficulty in treating many ferrous and nonferrous ores may arise when liberation size for an ore is so fine or properties of the constituent minerals are so similar that conventional mineral processing techniques are ineffective. In such cases, either pyro- or hydrometallurgical pretreatments may facilitate subsequent application of mineral dressing techniques. Conversely, use of mineral dressing methods at some appropriate stage in pyro- or hydrometallurgical processing may simplify a treatment scheme and lower the overall cost. Thus, difficult-to-treat ores are converted to readily concentratable artificial minerals by applying clever combinations of chemical processes and mineral dressing techniques. Several of these processes are reviewed here.