How to mine industrial silicon?
Industrial silicon is an important industrial raw material with a wide range of uses. It is used to make glass, ceramics, cement, alloys, silica gel, etc. It is a mineral that is ubiquitous on the earth, so it is relatively easy to mine industrial silicon. Generally speaking, the mining of industrial silicon includes the following steps:
| Grade | Chemical composition(%) | ||||
| Si | Fe | Al | Ca | P | |
| > | ≤ | ||||
| 1515 | 99.6% | 0.15 | - | 0.015 | 0.004 |
| 2202 | 99.5% | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.02 | 0.004 |
| 2203 | 99.5% | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.03 | 0.004 |
| 2503 | 99.5% | 0.2 | - | 0.03 | 0.004 |
| 3103 | 99.4% | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.03 | 0.005 |
| 3303 | 99.3% | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.03 | 0.005 |
| 411 | 99.2% | 0.4 | 0.04-0.08 | 0.1 | - |
| 421 | 99.2% | 0.4 | 0.1-0.15 | 0.1 | - |
| 441 | 99.0% | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.1 | - |
| 553 | 98.5% | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.3 | - |
1. Exploration and site selection: Before mining industrial silicon, geological exploration is required to determine the location, scale and quality of the ore deposit. According to the exploration results, a suitable site is selected for mining.
2. Geological development: After determining the location of the ore deposit, geological development is required, including cleaning the surface, conducting prospecting drilling, measuring the scale and layout of the ore body, etc.
3. Equipment preparation: Select appropriate mining equipment, such as drills, excavators, trucks, etc., and configure and prepare the equipment according to the depth and scale of the ore deposit.
4. Blasting and excavation: Use blasting technology to blast the ore, then use an excavator to dig out the ore and transport it to the ore crusher for crushing.
5. Ore crushing and mineral processing: The excavated ore is crushed into particles suitable for mineral processing by a crusher, and then sorted by mineral processing equipment to extract silicon ore.
6. Concentrate processing and purification: The extracted silicon ore is concentrated to extract silicon with higher purity, usually purified through flotation, gravity separation, magnetic separation and other process steps.
7. Transportation and processing: The extracted industrial silicon is packaged and transported, transported to the processing plant for processing, and produced into various products according to customer needs.
The above is the mining process of industrial silicon. Generally speaking, the mining of industrial silicon is relatively standardized and needs to strictly abide by the country's mineral resource protection policies and relevant laws and regulations, and also needs to pay attention to environmental protection and safe production. In the mining process, we must focus on science and technology, improve mine productivity, reduce energy and resource consumption, protect the ecological environment, and achieve sustainable use of resources.