TIKUMBE OPERATIONAL SITE
It is located within the world renowned Central African Copperbelt (CACB) of DRC Congo and Zambia. It is the worlds largest and richest grade sedimentary hosted …Read More
NAMPUNDWE OPERATIONAL SITE
Four copper occurrences namely Nampundwe, Sanje, Herald Farm and Argosy are located in a belt 30 km west of Lusaka. These are one of earliest discovered (1913) copper .Read More
OB1 - OPERATIONAL SITE
OB1 site is located in the immediate north of the famous Nchanga Open pit ( NOP) of Konkola Copper Mines. The material in the OB1 dump site has been accumulated from … …Read More
TIN PROCESSING UNIT, KABWE
Zumran along-with its joint venture partner established a 300t/Month feed capacity ELECTRIC ARC SMELTER for production of Tin metal, This Smelting process is a Read More
Mining Process
Mining
The ore is removed from the ground in either open pit or underground mines. Underground – sinking a vertical shaft into the earth to reach the copper ore and driving horizontal tunnels into the ore.
Open-pit – 90% of ore is mined using the open pit method. Ores near the surface can be quarried after removal of the surface layers.
Grinding and Concentration
An ore is a rock that contains enough metal to make it worthwhile extracting. The ore is crushed, then ground into powder. The ore is enriched using a process called froth flotation. Unwanted material
(called gangue) sinks to the bottom and is removed.
Roasting and Smelting
This is where the chemical reactions start. The powdered, enriched ore is heated in air between 500°C and 700°C to remove some sulphur and dry the ore, which is still a solid called calcine. A flux is a
substance which is added to the ore to make it melt more easily. The solid calcine is heated to 1200°C and melts. Some impurities are removed forming a matte (a mixture of liquid copper and iron sulphide).