Zirconium Mining

Zirconium is a chemical metal element found in both land and water of the earth. The pure zirconium metal is used in the nuclear reactors.

Ore:

The principal ore of zirconium is zircon. Zircon is found as the byproduct of titanium ores such as ilmenite and rutile. It also can be found on alluvial deposits and beaches which are now the largest contributor of zircon for commercial production. Zircon consists of zirconium as zirconium silicate (ZrSiO4).

Mining:

The zircon as a byproduct of ilmenite and rutile are mined by open pit mining. The initial process of open pit mining is checking of surface; ores quality and distribution; and the surrounding area. After confirming the needed requirements by the checked factors, the mine is established. The mines are craved as steps of walls with benches and ramps for locomotion. The miners, machineries, goods truck and wastes are transported on the ramps.

The mines are often round for a deeper excavation. Miners handle drilling and blasting for the extraction of ore from the mines. The zircon comprising ores excavated are collected and transported by trucks to the nearby processing plant. The processing plants are usually set up near the mines. The collected ilmenite and rutile ore are mostly heavier and larger in size. The open pit mining has the cons of being less expensive, easy shut down and unrestricted machinery usage, thus so widely employed.

The zircons on the alluvial deposits and beach sands are mined by dry mining methods using the excavators and scrappers. The scrappers remove the surface dirt of deposits and also collect the zircon ores. The excavators on the other hand dug out zircon ores which are heaped in at a certain area. Then the collected zircon ores are transported to the nearby processing plant by bulldozer or trucks.

Dredge mining is employed in the areas where zircon ore deposits are below the water table. In dredge mining the zircon ores are piled from water body by continuous bucket railing from the surface. The bucket stocks the zircon sands and climbs up to the initial processing plant in which the zircon is separated leaving the tailings which are moved back inside the water body and filled by the same railing buckets.

Processing and extraction:

The zircon composing ores from open pit mining are milled and crushed. The zircon is separated from other ore particles by magnetic separation method. In magnetic separation method the metallic ores and non metallic ores are separated based on their magnetic property in which zircon is collected as metallic ore separating itself from the non metallic impurities like quartz, clay and dirt.

The zircon sands from the alluvial deposits and beaches are directly introduced to mechanical separation for isolating zircon from tailings of quartz and clay. The mechanical separation method separates the components based on the weight and density of the particles.

The zircon from the wet deposits is separated by wet spiral separators. In wet spiral separators the separation is done by weight and speed of the sliding materials.

Most of the zirconium is used as zircon commercially with further polishing and refining. Very small amount only used as metal in nuclear reactors. Top zirconium producing nations are Australia, South Africa, China, and Indonesia; Mozambique, India, and Sri Lanka; in which Australia and South Africa jointly accounts 65% of the world production.