Beach Sand Beneficiation
Beach sand beneficiation is a specialized process that extracts valuable minerals from coastal sand using physical or chemical methods while removing impurities (quartz, clay, salt, etc.). Natural beach sand (coastal sand) typically has low levels of target minerals, but beneficiation can purify it to over 90%, meeting industrial-grade application requirements.
Beach sand beneficiation uses differences in density, magnetic properties, and electrical conductivity between minerals. The process includes gravity separation, magnetic separation, electrostatic separation, and drying to recover heavy minerals such as ilmenite, zircon sand, garnet, rutile, and monazite from natural sand. It is particularly suitable for developing coastal resources rich in rare minerals. Heavy mineral sand processing solutions involving washing and spiral separation are referred to as wet concentration plants (WCP); conversely, plants requiring a magnetic separator, an electrostatic separator, and a dryer for recovery are known as heavy mineral concentrate (HMC) dry separation.
Beach sand beneficiation Process
Beach sand (seashore placer) is a secondary enrichment deposit formed by the accumulation of heavy mineral debris in the seashore area due to the action of rivers, waves, tides, and ocean currents. We provide complete production lines for enriching each group of valuable ores from beach sand deposits, including rutile, ilmenite, magnetite, cobalt, monazite, quartz sand, and zircon.
- Pre-treatment: Washing, screening, scrubbing, and desliming to remove surface impurities and fine slimes, preparing the material for separation.
- Gravity Separation: A combination of spiral chutes and shaking tables is employed to perform roughing and enrichment of heavy minerals based on density differences while discarding tailings, yielding a rough concentrate containing ilmenite, magnetite, rutile, monazite, and quartzite.
- Magnetic Separation (Purification): Medium-intensity/high-gradient magnetic separators precisely separate strongly magnetic minerals such as ilmenite and magnetite.
- Electrostatic Separation (Fine Cleaning): Electrostatic separators remove silica and conductive minerals to yield high-purity concentrate.
heavy mineral sand separation process
✔ Achieves efficient separation by leveraging differences in mineral density, magnetic susceptibility, and electrical conductivity.
✔ Combines gravity, magnetic, and electrostatic concentration processes to suit various ore sources and grade requirements.
✔ Ideally suited for developing coastal resources rich in rare minerals, such as Senegal, Sierra Leone, etc.
✔ Low-energy equipment, fast delivery; turnkey heavy mineral separation solution, 95% mineral recovery.
Beach sand processing Plant
Heavy mineral sand processing plant
This is a 100 t/h (tons per hour) beach sand processing plant; the main raw ore information, equipment, and flow details are as follows:
- Impurities above 2 mm are removed.
- Need to separate & extract rutile, monazite, zircon, ilmenite, and magnetite from the beach sand.
Beach Sand/Heavy Mineral Sand Processing Plant Flow
1. Feeding & Screening steps: The excavator or loader feeds the raw ore into the mine bin and then feeds the vibrating screen through the electromagnetic vibrating feeder. The vibrating screen uses a 2mm sieve mesh layer to remove impurities above 2mm.
2. Gravity separation steps:
- Material below 2mm enters the magnetic separator from the slurry pump to separate magnetite. The magnetic separator output is pumped from the slurry to the spiral chute. Light minerals are removed by gravity separation.
- The spiral chute gravity separation equipment has two stages: the middle ore from the first-stage spiral chute equipment enters the second-stage spiral chute for reprocessing. All concentrate from the two-stage spiral chute is sent to the first double-drum magnetic separator to separate the ilmenite. The output is pumped to the shaking table through the slurry pump, and the principle of gravity removes the light minerals.
- The eight sets of shaking tables have two stages: the middle ore of the first-stage shaking table is sent to the second-stage shaking table for further processing through the slurry pump.
3. Magnetic separation steps (remove iron impurities): All concentrate from the shaker is sent to the rotary dryer to dry the material. The dried material enters the second double-drum magnetic separator through the elevator to separate the ilmenite.
4. Electrostatic separation steps (separation of rutile, zircon, monazite): To separate rutile, other minerals in the second double-drum magnetic separator enter the first electrostatic separator through the elevator. Then enter the second electrostatic separator through the elevator to separate the rutile. The rutile is separated into the third electrostatic separator through the hoist. Then, other minerals enter the double-roller strong magnetic separator through the elevator, separating zircon and monazite.
The beach sand (coastal sands) processing solutions primarily involve washing, screening, gravity separation, magnetic separation, and electrostatic separation to remove impurities (such as quartz) and thereby enhance the purity and grade of the heavy mineral concentrate (HMC). The specific choice of beneficiation processes and equipment depends largely on the ore content type (heavy mineral sands such as rutile, monazite, garnet, ilmenite, and zircon sands), processing capacity, budget, and target.
180 TPH Heavy Minerals WCP (Wet Concentrator Plant) Solution
- Raw Ore: Primarily sand with a very low percentage of heavy minerals (1% HMC): 68% ilmenite; 15% zircon; 2.5% rutile; 1.5% leucoxene.
- Equipment: trommel screen, spiral chutes (WCP’s equipment is installed on a steel structure floating operation platform).
- Main purpose: The heavy minerals concentrate grade needs to reach a total of about 50%.
145TPH Beach Sand Spiral Separation Plant
- Process: washing (trommel screen), gravity separation (spiral concentrator).
- Main purpose: Recovering beach sand, monazite sand, zircon sand, and ilmenite sand that don’t contain sticky clay.
Heavy Minerals Concentrate (HMC) Dry Separation System
- Equipment: rotary dryer, electrostatic separator, and high-intensity magnetic separator.
- Main purpose: Separating zircon, rutile, and monazite concentrate.
JXSC offers a complete beach sand beneficiation solution, from roughing to cleaning. The core flow is “gravity pre-enrichment – magnetic separation – precise electro-separation“, with each step closely connected and interlocking. This comprehensive approach effectively separates heavy minerals such as ilmenite, rutile, monazite, zircon, and quartz, achieving a stable recovery rate of over 90%. It is particularly suitable for titanium, zirconium, rare earth elements, monazite, rutile, tantalum-niobium, and heavy mineral sand-rich regions in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia) and the African coast (Senegal, Sierra Leone).
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