Air pollution control spe- cialist Genair is install- ing a 180 000 m3/h bag filter system for the sintering plant at a BHP Billiton mine, at Hotazel, in the Northern Cape.

The bag filter system is intended to meet the mine’s current capacity demands and accommodate future expansion plans.

The contract was awarded in May and delivery of the bag filter system started in June.

Genair director Wynand Schoeman says the installation and the commissioning of the system should be completed within this year.

“This fast turnaround time will set a new record for the local bag filter industry,” he states.

The system is being installed at a new off-stand cooling and mixing unit, used to cool the manganese after the sintering process to expand the current dust-extraction capacity.

The bag filter unit comprises a fixed vane prefilter system which extracts about one-third of the dust to increase the filtration efficiency of the system. This method also increases the filter media life and decreases compressed air consumption, says Schoeman.

Beneficiation
The BHP Billiton mine, which was commissioned in 1964, produces ore that lends itself to technologically advanced beneficiation processes.

The ore is hauled from the face to an in-pit primary crusher at the beneficiation plant where it is crushed to 100 mm and conveyed along a 2 km belt to the primary stockpile.

Ore from the primary stockpile is conveyed to two parallel circuits comprising scalping screens, cone crushers, double- deck sizing screens and a horizontal dewatering screen. The different size fractions are stockpiled in marked, allocated areas.

Sintering
The mine’s dense-medium separation plant beneficiates the ore prior to sintering and, during the sintering process, the ore undergoes calcination in a kiln, resulting in a physi- cally strong and chemically stable product.

Bucket wheels reclaim the sintered manganese, which ensures a blended and consistent product and reduces fines generation.

The manganese ore from the mine is processed at miner Samancor Manganese’s Metalloys division, in Meyerton, Gauteng.

With seven electric furnaces, three of which are among the largest in the world, Metalloys produces 30 t/h of high-carbon, medium carbon ferromanganese and silicomanaganese.

“The flexibility and inte- grated nature of the operation, as well as economies of scale and its relative proximity to the mine, make Metalloys one of the largest and most competitive global producers of high-quality manganese alloys,” says BHP Billiton.

Other Projects

Genair has also completed a 256 000 m3/h bag filter system at gold refinery Rand Refinery, a 130 000 m3/h system for steel products manufacturer Scaw Metals and a 120 000 m3/h system for lead acid automotive batteries supplier Dixon Batteries.

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