mining chemical industry production

When they say “mining chemical industry production,” many immediately imagine huge reactors and conveyors with finished products. But in fact, the key link often lies earlier - in the preparation and enrichment of raw materials. Without effective extraction of a useful component from an ore or rock, all subsequent chemical transformations lose economic meaning. It is here, at the intersection of mining and chemistry, that there are a lot of nuances that are not always visible from the outside. A common mistake is to assume that the main problem is in the chemical technological processes themselves. No, sometimes everything depends on the quality and stability of the mineral raw materials supplied for processing, and this is already the task of mining and beneficiation.

Raw material base: the beginning of all beginnings

Take, for example, the production of potash fertilizers. In theory, everything is simple: there is a layer of sylvinite, it is mined, ground, flotation or galurgy is carried out - and here you have potassium chloride. But in reality, the composition of the formation is heterogeneous, the KCl content “dances,” and clay layers can ruin everything, increasing humidity and complicating grinding. It is necessary to constantly adjust the modes of enrichment apparatus. This is not a laboratory experiment, this is daily practice, where decisions are made based on the results of shift tests, and not according to a textbook.

Or another case is the production of rare earth elements. Here the raw materials are often complex, with a low content of target components. This means that not just crushing is needed, but a fine opening of the mineral aggregates, so that at subsequent stages of chemical leaching the reagent can “reach” the minerals. to the desired element. Sometimes it is more economically profitable to carry out processing not at the mining site, but to transport the concentrate to a specialized hydrometallurgical plant. These supply chains are also part of the larger production cycle of the mining and chemical industry.

In this context, the role of equipment cannot be ignored. Reliable technology for crushing, screening and magnetic separation is the basis. Here, by the way,LONGI Corporation(https://www.ljmagnet.ru), which since 1993 has been engaged in the development and production of mining equipment. Their experience in creating separators, for example, directly relates to the tasks of pre-enrichment of ores before their chemical processing. When the company employs more than 1,200 people, and most of them are engineers and technologists, this indicates a serious approach to design solutions. Such equipment, produced on an area of 140,000 m2, is not just “hardware”, it is embodied engineering experience that affects the efficiency of everything that followsmining chemical industry productioncycle.

Process chains: where theory meets practice

Moving from raw materials to technology, you are faced with the classic question: “wet?” or ?dry? process? For chemical processing, a prepared concentrate of a certain size and moisture content is often preferable. But achieving these parameters is a separate task. Dry grinding can be dusty and lead to losses, while wet grinding requires subsequent drying, which costs energy. The choice is always a compromise based on specific cost figures and availability of energy resources at the field.

Once I had to participate in a project for processing phosphate ore. The project provided for a classic flotation scheme. But the ore turned out to be more apatite-carbonate than expected. Flotation proceeded, but recovery was lower than planned; the reagent regime turned out to be too sensitive to fluctuations in nutrition. I had to experiment with a combination of methods on the go, already in a working factory - they added a magnetic separation stage to remove some of the carbonates. This was not spelled out in the technical specifications; it was a decision born from observations of the behavior of the pulp in the trays and analysis of operational data. Such situations are the norm, not the exception.

Here again the issue of hardware design comes to the fore. The reliability of pumps for pumping abrasive pulps, the resistance of mill linings to chemical attack, the accuracy of reagent dispensers - from these “little things” the continuity of everything dependsproduction. When the annual production of equipment amounts to thousands of units, like that of LONGI, this means that their products are tested in various, including difficult, conditions of mining and chemical production. This is an important factor for the technology that sits in production and chooses what to build the process on.

Ecology and resources: uncomfortable questions

No serious discussionmining chemical industryCan't do without the topic of waste. Concentration tailings, sludge, and wash water are huge volumes. Previously, they often took the route of storing in tailings dumps. Now the pressure from environmental authorities and society is enormous. And that's right. Therefore, modern production is increasingly thinking about the integrated use of raw materials. Those same “tails” may be a source of construction materials or contain associated components, the extraction of which becomes economically feasible when technology changes.

For example, at one of the alumina production enterprises we tried to introduce a system of deeper leaching of red mud for the associated extraction of scandium. Technically this turned out to be possible, but the economics of the project did not work out. due to high capital costs for reconstruction and instability of the scandium market. The project was frozen. This is a typical story: there is a technological solution, but it depends on economic feasibility and long-term market forecasts. Such failures are part of professional experience; they teach you to evaluate innovations more soberly.

Water is a separate sore point. Many chemical and metallurgical processes require large amounts of water, and after use it is contaminated with reagents and salts. A closed water supply cycle is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. But its organization is a complex engineering complex that requires both space and money. Often at older enterprises it is implemented in stages, which creates its own technological difficulties.

Personnel and experience: something you can’t buy

You can have the most modern equipment and a verified technological map, but without competent mid-level specialists - foremen, shift supervisors, technologists - all this will work at half capacity. The peculiarity of mining and chemical production is its continuity and interconnection of all areas. A failure at the crushing and screening plant will hit the leaching plant in a few hours, and they will already suffer losses.

The value of an experienced craftsman is that he can determine the beginning of a deviation from the regime by the sound of a working mill or by the type of foam in a flotation machine. You can’t teach this in five years at an institute; it is developed through years of practice. And when in an enterprise, as in the mentionedLONGI Corporation, more than 60% of employees have higher professional education, this creates a good basis for the formation of such personnel. The engineer who designed the separator has a better understanding of its real capabilities and limitations, which helps in dialogue with operators.

For me personally, an indicator of the quality of any equipment is the simplicity and consistency of its maintenance in the field, in a dusty and noisy workshop. If half of the unit needs to be disassembled to replace a worn part, and the documentation is translated with errors, this is a bad sign. Good manufacturers think about this during the design phase. And judging by the scale and longevity of some players in the market, they have learned this truth.

A look into the future: not only about digitalization

There is a lot of talk these days about Industry 4.0, digital twins and full automation. This is certainly a trend in mining and chemical production. Sensors, data acquisition systems, process modeling - all this helps optimize operating conditions and predict failures. But it is important not to fall into euphoria. Any model is a simplification of reality. It is based on assumptions. And if the raw material suddenly changes its properties (and this is a common thing in geology), the model may begin to give ideal, but incorrect recommendations.

Therefore, the future is seen not in replacing humans, but in creating intelligent decision support systems for them. So that the technologist sees not just a graph of the temperature in the autoclave, but receives a signal: “a trend indicates the possible formation of an insoluble precipitate after 2 hours,” it is recommended to check the concentration of reagent X?. And the final decision is up to the person, with his experience and intuition.

And of course, the trend towards deep processing and low-waste technologies will only intensify. This is dictated by both economics (expensive raw materials must be used 100%) and ecology. Perhaps, after some time, the very concept of “tailings storage facility” will become a thing of the past, and the dumps of old years will become a source of secondary raw materials for new technologies. And in this process the role of reliable, efficient equipment for the preparation and processing of mineral raw materials, the very thing that underlies the entire chainmining chemical industry production, will only increase. After all, it all starts with correctly and effectively extracting valuables from the subsoil.