NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
ECE 3103 – MINERALS PROCESSING
TUTORIAL 1 – 13/09/2024
Question 1
List three minerals that are mined in Zimbabwe
For each mineral listed in (a)
(i) Identify a large scale mining company which is responsible for mining and processing the
ore.
(ii) Describe how you would identify the mineral based on its physical properties.
(iii) State at least 3 uses of the metal which is extracted from the mineral.
Question 2
(i) With the aid of a diagram describe the operation of a gyratory crusher.
(ii) What are the benefits of using wet grinding over dry grinding?
Question 3
A sieve analysis was carried out on an iron ore. The results were as follows:
Size (µm) Weight (g)
+600 42.2
-600+300 40.0
-300+150 26.4
-150+75 17.4
-75 33.9
i) What is the mass median size (µm)?
ii) What is the estimated percentage of material in the -75+37 µm range?
iii) What is the 80% passing size?
Question 4
(i) What is the difference between free and choked crushing?
(ii) With the aid of diagram describe the working principle of a Blake jaw crusher, also
describe the materials of construction and its operating parameters.
Question 5
With the aid of a flow diagram describe
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(i) open circuit grinding
(ii) closed circuit grinding
Based on your analysis of these two methods explain why closed circuit grinding is the most
common method used in mineral processing.
Question 6
Determine the energy required for secondary crushing of the Mtshinda ore from 50 mm to
2.5 mm assuming;
(i) Rittinger’s law
(ii) Kicks’ law
Note: the process engineer has in his records that preliminary crushing experiments
performed on the ore showed that crushing 50 mm particles of the ore to 5mm required an
average of 48 kJ/kg.
Question 7
A crushing mill reduces limestone from a mean particle size of 45 mm to a product of mean
particle size 7.78 mm and in so doing requires 21 kJ/kg of material crushed. Calculate the
power required to crush the same material at the same rate, from a feed having a mean size
of 25 mm to a product with a mean size of 1.0 mm.
(i) assuming Rittinger’s law applies?
(ii) assuming Kick’s law applies?
Which of these results would be regarded as more reliable and why?
Question 8
A crusher in reducing dolomite of crushing strength 100MN/m2 from an average diameter
of 6mm to 0.1mm average diameter requires 9KW of energy. The same crusher is used to
crush limestone at the same rate of output from 6mm average diameter to a product with
average diameter of 0.5mm. Estimate the power required to drive the crusher? Limestone
has a crushing strength of 70MN/m.
Question 9
The Bond work index for a mesh-of-grind of 200mesh for a rock consisting mainly of quartz
is 17.5 kWh/ton. How much power is needed to reduce the material in a wet-grinding ball
mill from an 80 percent passing size of 1100 µm to an 80 percent passing size of 80 µm.
Question 10
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A study was conducted to determine the bond work index for a Birnin-Gwari iron ore from
Northern Nigeria using the modified Bond’s method. Samples of iron ore were collected and
granite was used as a reference ore. The bond work index for the reference ore (granite) is
15.13 KWh/s ton. The following results were obtained from the tests;
Granite Feed Granite Product
Sieve Size Range Weight retained Sieve Size Range Weight retained
(μm) (g) (μm) (g)
+ 355 3.94 + 355 0.1
- 355 + 250 3.68 - 355 + 250 0.0
- 250 + 180 3.94 - 250 + 180 0.1
- 180 + 125 3.64 - 180 + 125 3.2
- 125 + 90 5.44 - 125 + 90 13.1
- 90 + 63 26.94 - 90 + 63 27.4
- 63 52.46 - 63 56.1
Iron ore feed Iron ore product
Sieve Size Range Weight retained Sieve Size Range Weight retained
(μm) (g) (μm) (g)
+ 355 2.65 + 355 0.0
- 355 + 250 2.53 - 355 + 250 0.0
- 250 + 180 2.45 - 250 + 180 0.1
- 180 + 125 2.45 - 180 + 125 1.1
- 125 + 90 27.46 - 125 + 90 28.43
- 90 + 63 36.94 - 90 + 63 19.24
- 63 25.5 - 63 51.13
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Using the given results, calculate the bond work index for the iron ore.
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