Beneficiation of low grade ores

Low grade ores are the ore that contains a low proportion of valuable minerals. This term can
also be applied to richer ores containing large amount of undesirable impurities, gangue,
arsenics, etc.
Low grade ores are less valuable than high grade ones. Also, recovery rates for low
grade ores tends to be lower than high grade ores, i.e. a lower percentage of valuable minerals
is extracted successfully.
The definition of low and high grade depends on resource in question. For Iron, the low grade
ores have less than 40% of iron whereas for gold, an ore having 1% gold by mass will be
considered as very high grade ore as gold is more valuable than iron and is rarely available
compared to iron.
A huge amount of low grades ores are piled, dumped and thrown away as it is economically not
viable to extract minerals from them, these also results in environmental pollution and increase
in cost of minerals.
So we need to do beneficiation of low grade ores we would mainly need to remove/separate
the undesirable impurities, gangue and matrix from the ores. The basic step to do this is by
washing and rubbing the ores. Then we can also do grinding followed by gravity separation on
Jigging or magnetic separation. We can also use some natural process like Bio-leeching and
phytomining.
Bio-leeching can be used for beneficiation of low grade copper ores. Some bacteria can live by
using energy between the bond of sulfur and copper. This separates the metal from the ore. It
has an advantage that it is very energy efficient but also has a disadvantage that it is a very slow
process.
Phytomining is also an interesting process. Some plats absorbs metal compounds when they
grow. The plants can be burned and metal can be extracted from the ash. It can also be used to
extract metals from a contaminated land. Brassicas (the cabbage family) can extract metals
including cadmium, cobalt and nickel.
Using of various microorganisms for oxidations and reduction of sulfur and certain other metals
like sulfate reducing bacteria can be used for beneficiation of low grade ores. When these
bacteria grows, it converts oxides and sulfates to sulfides
For Iron:
1. Washing and wet scrubbing: This process is very primitive and is used to remove clay, fine
sand and other impurities. It also removes impurities from cavities and pores.
2. Gravity separation: Before the start of this process, the ore is crushed properly. Then
after this process all the lighter impurities floats on the surface and these impurities are
removed.
3. Heavy media cyclone: This type of separation is used for fine ore. It uses the application
of centrifugation and gravity.
4. Jigging: It is one of the oldest method of gravity concentration technique where bulk
materials are separated into light, medium and heavy density fractions.
5. Magnetic separation:
6. Froth flotation: Froth flotation is a process for selectively separating hydrophobic materials
from hydrophilic. This is used in several processing industries. Quartz and silicate materials
from magnetite ores.