ABSTRACT
Ore, the product of the mine, consists of mineral or minerals sparsely disseminated through barren rock material known as gangue. Elimination of as much as possible of this rock material is an economic necessity before smelting, for the rejected material is not transported and hence a saving in freight costs is achieved; and a mechanical rejection of gangue is much cheaper than elimination of waste material as slag in a smelting process. The operations involved in the elimination of the gangue and the concentration of the mineral(S) into a small bulk is known as mineral dressing. Several other terms are also in common use, namely ore treatment, ore dressing, milling and beneficiation. The valuable product of the operation is known as concentrate and constitutes the feed to the metallurgical plant; the discarded waste is called tailing. During the next decade many patents were filed which sought to achieve a wider divergence in separation between conducting and nonconducting mineral particles.
