Main Beneficiation Methods and Process Flow of Placer Gold Ore

The beneficiation of placer gold ore primarily relies on the difference in specific gravity between gold and gangue minerals, achieving efficient separation through gravity separation techniques. This method offers advantages such as low cost, high recovery rate, and environmental friendliness. The key processes typically include pretreatment, roughing, scavenging, tailings recovery, and cleaning.

1.Pretreatment

Placer gold ore often contains a significant amount of gravel and clay, which can cause equipment clogging. The pretreatment stage generally employs a trommel screen, which integrates screening and washing functions. Through rotational movement, it effectively removes clay impurities and controls the feed particle size via the screen mesh, making it suitable for various types of placer gold ore pretreatment.

2.Roughing

Roughing is commonly carried out using a jig separator. The reciprocating action of pulsating water causes minerals to stratify by density: high-density gold particles quickly settle to form concentrate, while lighter gangue minerals are carried away by the water flow. Jig separators offer large processing capacity, strong adaptability, and efficiently discard waste initially.

3.Scavenging

To recover fine-grained gold, a vibrating chute is often used for scavenging. This equipment employs mechanical vibration to keep the slurry in a fluctuating state within the chute, enhancing the settling effect of fine gold particles. It is particularly suitable for placer gold ore with high clay content, significantly improving the recovery rate of fine gold.

4.Tailings Recovery

In the tailings treatment stage, a centrifugal concentrator is widely used. The strong centrifugal force generated by the high-speed rotating drum

further enriches fine gold particles, reducing tailings grade and improving overall recovery rate.

5.Cleaning

A shaking table is commonly used for the purification of placer gold concentrate. The asymmetric reciprocating motion of the table, combined with lateral water flow, enables precise separation of minerals based on specific gravity and particle size, ultimately yielding high-grade gold concentrate. Shaking tables offer high separation accuracy, operational flexibility, and excellent recovery results.

Placer gold beneficiation centers on gravity separation, allowing flexible configuration of equipment combinations based on raw ore characteristics to achieve ideal separation indicators.