Allmineral high-tech equipment can control 600 micron in sand effectively which in turn can be mixed with coarse sand as per desired proportion to prepare engineered sand for high end construction sand and ready mix concrete.

Allmineral Asia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Allmineral GmbH, Germany, is one of the leading mineral beneficiation solution providers. With more than 25 years of mixed experience in the field of mineral processing augmented with gravel, sand, coal and recycling markets, and clouted with SINOMA and Schmidt Kranz as major shareholders, Allmineral secures a significant market position in the domain.

Key products which ensured the company’s rapid progress were its alljig gravel jigging machines for separating contaminants from gravel and sand. This technology allowed many gravel and sand producers to solve their quality issues with economic feasibility. Allmineral Asia is now exploring feasibility of this segment in India. The washing of sand and aggregate is a very common application area for allmineral equipment and there are many sand and aggregate washing plant in Europe, which use alljig and allflux. The art of cleaning of aggregates and control of fines in sand are keys to best quality sand and aggregate. Allmineral high-tech equipment can control 600 micron in sand effectively which in turn can be mixed with coarse sand as per desired proportion to prepare engineered sand for high end construction sand and ready mix concrete. The design of plant follows strict European standard for very safe and long life of operation.

In the early nineties the company introduced its all-new allflux fluidized bed separator. This machine made it possible for the first time to classify large volumes of sand or water slurries and concurrently remove organic impurities in a single pass. In the early 2000s Allmineral introduced the allair jig which is working completely dry with air only to the coal industry. Since then about 80 allair jigs have been supplied for coal preparation plants in the US, India, Colombia, Spain and Ukraine. Capacities of these jigs are depending on the feed size between 60 and 30 TPH. The capacities per jig can be doubled by using the recently developed allair type MP fitted with two jigging decks in one unit reaching capacities of up to 120 TPH. The major advantage of this design is that – although capacities have been doubled – the footprint of the jig plant remains the same and jigging air requirement is only marginally increased compared to the single deck units. The first allair type MP plant has been commissioned successfully earlier this year in India where 35 allair jig units are in operation already, the largest number in a single country worldwide. Since early 2007 the product range has been supplemented by a wet high-intensity magnetic separator. The gaustec magnetic separator is used to sort fine-grained, paramagnetic ores like hematite iron ores with capacities of up to 1,400 TPH per unit, the biggest WHIMS in the market. Another application of the gaustec is the separation of iron contaminants from industrial sands.

The recovery of metal from slag with alljig and allflux systems contributes both to the best possible use of natural resources and to significant profitability benefits. Due to the required high specific gravities of separation, the alljig is often the only economic option for recovering metal particles. Stainless steel, ferro-chrome and ferro-manganese and other valuable metals have been recovered with circuits employing allmineral equipment. At many plants, the separated slag can be sold as aggregate. Thus, two revenue streams are created from a discarded waste.

Breakthrough technology

Another new development Allmineral is introducing to the market currently is related to the gaustec wet high intensity magnetic separators (WHIMS). While over the last years the increase of feed capacities was in the focus of their R&D work, which resulted in feed capacities of up to 1,400 TPH per unit, safer and trouble-free operation was the goal of gaustec’s latest development, the gaustec NoBLOCK screen. This NoBLOCK screen sits upstream of the WHIMS and avoids the known, but so far unsolved issue of clogging of matrix boxes by oversize materials. Such clogging results in less efficient separation, capacity reduction and finally plant downtime for cleaning the matrix boxes which can take days depending on the number of matrix boxes installed. Even though standard screens installed upstream of the WHIMS provide some protection, its use has proven that it is a good but not 100 per cent safe solution. Wear and shape of the PU panels typically used for these screens do not prevent oversize particles ending up in the screen underflow, at least to a certain extent. Over time any oversized particles in the WHIMS feed create the above mentioned issues. In order to achieve the best protection and more reliable operation a new concept had to be developed. Such protection screen had to be designed to ensure that once a particle has passed it, it should also pass through the matrix box openings. The solution was to use screen panels made out of the same steel used for matrix boxes applying the same shape of the matrix box gap in order to prevent oversized particles to enter the process.

Allmineral GmbH, headquartered at Duisburg, Germany with its subsidiaries in USA, South Africa, Poland, India and now in Australia and presence in more than 20 countries through licensees and agents. Over the years, Allmineral has sold more than 500 nos. alljig, 120 nos. allflux, 80 nos. allair and 80 nos. WHIMS worldwide.

Authored by__Chiranjib Banerjee, Head Business Development, Allmineral Asia Pvt Ltd