IRON MINING

STRUCTURES & PURPOSES/MEANING

Jaw Crusher
 Primary crusher
 Consists of 2 crushing faces or jaws
 Our jaw crusher is Blake Type which was invented in 1858 by Eli Whitney Blake
 Movable jaw is pivoted at the top by cross shafts
 A machine for crushing rock or ore between two heavy steel jaws

Blast Furnace
 Its role is to reduce and convert iron oxides into liquid iron
 Iron ore, coke, and limestone are put into the top, and preheated air is blown into
the bottom
 Why “blast” furnace? Because hot air is “blasted” into the furnace
 Molten pig iron from a blast furnace is poured into a large refractory-lined ladle

Spiral Classifier
 Uses a continuous moving spiral to move sands up a slope
 Mainly used in metal beneficiation production line to classify minerals according
to their different sedimentation velocity

Conveyor Belt
 Used for moving broken ore from one place to another

Vibrating Screen
 A device made with a screening surface vibrated mechanically at high speeds and
used especially for screening ore, coal, or other fine dry materials
Vibratory Feeder
 Uses both vibration and gravity to move material
 Gravity is used to determine the direction, either down, down to a side and then
vibration is used to move the material

Ball Mill
 A type of grinder used to grind and blend materials for use in mineral dressing
processes, paints, etc.
 Works on the principle of impact and attrition

MINING PROCESS OF IRON

Today, I will explain about how mining of iron occurs.

The first thing that miners do is BLASTING wherein they put explosives on a
certain place where iron ore can be found, example is the TACONITE which
is a very hard rock in order to break it into smaller pieces.

After blasting, the next process is TRANSPORTATION. The taconite pieces

are scooped up by electric shovels. Each shovel can hold up to 85 tons of rock.
The shovels place the taconite into GIANT DUMP TRUCKS. These trucks
are as big as a house and hold up to 240 tons of taconite. The trucks take the
taconite directly to the processing plant.
After transportation, the next process is CRUSHING. The taconite is crushed
into very small pieces by rock crushing machines, for example the JAW
CRUSHER. The crushers keep crushing the rock until it is the size of a
MARBLE. The rock is mixed with water and ground in rotating mills until it is
as fine as powder.

After crushing, the next process is SEPARATION. The iron ore is separated
from the taconite using magnetism. The remaining rock is waste material and is
dumped into tailings basins. The taconite powder with the iron in it is called
CONCENTRATE.

After separation, the next process is MIXING. About 16 pounds of

BENTONITE are added to every ton of iron ore concentrate. Small amounts
of limestone (1%) are also added and mixed with the concentrate. Limestone is
added to meet the requirements of steel customers in the blast furnace process.
The iron ore concentrate is now mixed.