A Perspective of the Segregation Process

The segregation process is an effective method for treating oxide ores containing metals such as antimony, bismuth, cobalt, copper, gold, lead, nickel, palladium, silver and tin which form volatile chlorides or oxychlorides.In the process an ore is heated, together with a chloride and carbon, to some optimum temperature. The metal in the ore is chloridized and volatilized, and is then deposited in a metallic state on the carbon surfaces. The metal can then be concentrated cheaply by a subsequent screening, magnetic separation or flotation prior to smelting.In this paper, 1) reaction mechanism of the segregation (generation of hydrogen chloride gas; formation and volatilization of metal chlorides; precipitation of metals on carbon surfaces), 2) segregation of oxide copper ores (history of development; commercial operation at Katanga Mine in Peru), 3) segregation of oxide nickel ores (history of studies; test operation by the MINPRO-PAMCO process), and 4) segregation of manganese nodules (trend of studies; a study by Parekh, Jensen and Goldberger; a study by the authors) are outlined.