Why is Mineral Processing an Essential Part of Metallurgical Industry?

The general grade of ores mined from the mines is relatively low. For example, the iron content of many iron ore is only 20% to 30%, and the copper content of copper ores is much lower, which is only 0.2% to 1%. It's more difficult and not economic to use these low-grade ores to smelt directly. Therefore, for low-grade ores, it's necessary to use mineral processing method to separate the useful minerals from the gangue, thus improving the ore grade and making these ores meet the requirements of smelting.

In addition, the ore often contains several useful ingredients (such as copper, lead, zinc or copper and zinc, copper and iron, etc.), they must be recycled as far as possible. Mineral Processing equipment can achieve the goal well.

In addition to the useful composition, the ore often contains harmful impurities. In smelting process, the harmful impurities entering the metal will affect the metal, and sometimes they will complicate the smelting process and even make it difficult to carry out. For example, harmful impurities are zinc in copper and lead ores. The harmful impurities in zinc ores are iron. Sulphur and phosphorus are harmful impurities in iron ore. It's a must to remove or reduce these harmful impurities to the allowable range of product quality standards before smelting by using mineral processing method.

Therefore, with the development of metallurgical industry, the status and role of mineral processing are very important. Mineral processing becomes an essential part of metallurgy industry.