Washing systems help separate waste products from saleable products, enabling the recovery of more useable sand at quarry and mine operations.

Terex washing systems and multi-franchise distributor ELB Equipment asserts that its long-standing  partnership focusses on delivering high-quality washed sand and aggregates for use on many infrastructure projects across the country.  

Terex affirms that its advanced washing systems offer customers a range of options to suit specific construction requirements in all conditions and varying geologies, while ELB Equipment says its extensive branch and dealer network throughout the Southern African sub-region offer reliability and efficiency.

ELB Equipment minerals processing specialist and product manager: Terex washing systems Heath Dickson says centuries of mining South Africa’s rich resources has led to the depletion of many of the reserves especially those that are close to the surface and easy to obtain.

Aggregates and sands are mostly contaminated with fines, clay and or organic matter that require further processing before they can be brought to market.

“For concrete construction purposes sand should have minimal fines smaller than 75 microns as these require more cement to bind. Above this threshold sand mixes can be optimised to customers’ requirements depending on the application. Most other wash plants battle to recover fines smaller than 500 microns which means aggregate suppliers can lose up to 30% of their saleable sand extracted. It also burdens water treatment plants that need to carry 30% more silt,” says Dickson.

Terex washing systems says that its wide product range can meet the requirements of all types of sands while producing two different grades of sand, from 0 mm to 2 mm and 0 mm to 8 mm, simultaneously. This enables the supplier to process two streams simultaneously, on the same machine.

Different systems are available for each application including washing, aggregate rinsing, scrubbing and wastewater management systems from 20 t/h to 200 t/h.  These can produce high-grade sand for large-scale construction projects such as plaster sand, manufactured sand, concrete sand, paving sand, glass manufacturing sand and sand used in tile adhesives, as well as sand for bunkers and drainage sand used on golf courses. Specialised fracking sands can also be produced.

ELB Equipment’s state-of-art Terex machines are designed to improve efficiency and recovery of more useable sand, and the company also provides specialist technical skills to find the most suitable solution for every site.