Molybedenum Mining

Molybdenum is one of the abundant elements in the earth's crust which are constantly mined day by day to assure our future with an adequate supply of it.

Ores:

Molybdenum occurs in the ores of molybdenite (MoS2), wulfenite (PbMoO4), powellite (CaMoO4) but mostly extracted from molybdenite -molybdenum disulfide for the commercial purposes. Molybdenum also can be extracted as a byproduct from copper ore mines.

Mining:

Molybdenum is mined from both open pit method and underground cave method. The open pit methods are mostly handled in the regions where the availability of ore is on the surface and also in some minimal molybdenum regions such as copper mines. The open pit technique is bit less expensive than the underground cave method.

The underground caving technique is confidently used in the areas of rich molybdenum ore which are buried deep down the soil. In this technique, the rocks are made to collapse with their own weight and transported to the surface for further processing. This method of extraction is only executed in well financial mines as cost of this technique remains quite high.

The molybdenum mines can also be differentiated based on extraction such as primary mines, by-product mines and co-product minesIn primary mines, the molybdenum is directly extracted from the molybdenite in a bulk quantity. Most of these mines use underground cave technique for extraction.In by-product mines, molybdenum is extracted as a byproduct of copper ores. These mines produce a considerable quantity of molybdenum.

In co-product mines, molybdenum is both mined as primary product and byproduct thus, mining in a much larger quantity. These are considerably large mines with surplus amount of ores to process.

Processing:

The large mined molybdenite ores from the mines are breakdown to powder gravel by repeated ball milling process. The obtained gravel ore is mixed with liquid and aerated in the floating process, during this process the less dense ore from mixture floats at the top of the liquid while heavy impurities are being sedimented at the bottom. The above floating particles are collected as composites of MoS2 concentration. This concentration consists of 85% to 90% of MoS?2 in it. The collected MoS2 concentration is then made to undergo roasting process in different chambers by maintaining temperatures from 500? to 650?. In this oxidizing process MoS2 is converted to MoO3 (technical molybdenum oxide).

The resulted MoO3 is reduced into metallic molybdenum by hydrogen. Instead of reduction in to metal, Technical molybdenum oxide can also be used to make ferromolybdenum (FeMo) and Tech oxide.

In the case of copper mines the MoS2 concentrate is obtained from the anode mud during the electrolytic copper refining process. The resulted concentrate is made to undergo roasting to make MoO3 and reduced to molybdenum metal by hydrogen and can be made into other molybdenum commodities respectively.

China heads first in mining and production of the molybdenum with 130,000 metric ton a year. The major contributors in china are China Molybdenum, Jinduicheng Molybdenum Corp. (JDC) and Jinzhou Xintai Metallurgy mainly located across in the three provinces Shaanxi, Liaoning, and Shanxi.

Chile grabs the next place by 58,000 metric tons in a year in which most of the product are extracted from the copper mines of the country. The state-owned company Codelco and KGHM Polska Miedz of Sierra Gorda copper-molybdenum mine in the Atacama Desert in the Antofagasta region are the major contributors of the total production in the country.

USA is the third largest producer with a whooping 45,000 metric tons from its seven molybdenum mines in which only two are the primary mines. The famous primary mine is Climax in Colorado.Except them there are much more global producers of molybdenum such as Australia, Papua New Guinea, Canada, Norway and Sweden.