Silver Ore Beneficiation Process

Silver-bearing ores are mainly divided into gold-silver ores and lead-zinc-copper-associated silver ores. Their silver production accounts for more than 99% of the total output. Taking the independent silver mine mainly producing silver as an example, its beneficiation method usually adopts silver ore flotation process. The associated silver ore adopts a single flotation method, a combined process of flotation-gravity method, and flotation-cyanidation leaching method.

The selection of silver ore beneficiation process is usually determined according to the properties of gold and silver ore and product specifications.

• Flotation separation is suitable for silver ore with fine inlaid particle size and strict symbiosis with sulfide ore.
• Gravity separation method is used to treat the silver ore separated from the monomer, that is, the silver with the coarse particle size and the free state is embedded. There is no pollution and low cost when the silver is recovered by gravity separation. The main equipment used are spiral chute, shaking table, jig and so on. The reselection is often combined with the silver ore flotation process.
• Cyanide leaching methods is mainly used for silver sulfide minerals. In order to increase efficiency, gold and silver concentrates are selected and then cyanided on-site to produce gold and silver.
• Gravity separation and flotation combined process is suitable for ore with high grade but uneven particle size and easy to dissociate, which can improve the silver ore recovery rate and reduce certain beneficiation costs.
• Flotation-cyanation leaching combined process is suitable for recovering sulfide ore embedded in gangue minerals to obtain a small amount of concentrate through flotation, and then cyanidation treatment can improve the recovery rate of silver ore.

Silver Ore Processing Plant

1. Crushing stage
The content of silver in the ore is extremely low. In order to extract the silver, the silver ore needs to be crushed and ground, and the beneficiation method is used to pre-enrich or separate the silver from the ore. The jaw crusher is used for coarse crushing and medium crushing, and the cone crusher is used for fine crushing.

2. Grinding stage
The screened final product is ground through the first stage ball mill and forms closed-circuit grinding with the classification mechanism. The silver inlaid in silver-bearing minerals has fine particle size and complicated occurrence state. Therefore, grinding is very important in the preparation stage of the silver ore beneficiation process.

3. Separating stage
Depending on the nature of the ore, the silver ore beneficiation process required for it is also different, including gravity separation, flotation, cyanidation, flotation, combined beneficiation and other methods.

4. Dehydration stage
After the desired minerals are separated, because they contain a lot of water, a thickener must preliminarily concentrate them, and a filter press is used for the first and second stages of dehydration. The tailings are directly discharged to the original tailings pond, and the backwater is recycled.