Bateman Engineering NV - Jigging

Bateman Engineering has established a leading position in the world using APIC Jigs to recover
metal from slag.

Coal, minerals and ores can be effectively upgraded using APIC Technologies, packaged in modules or
plants, when so desired, using Bateman Engineering skills and turnkey expertise.

Ongoing development backed by industrial campaigns has extended the effectiveness of APIC Technologies
into new and more difficult applications.

Important breakthroughs have been the design and commissioning of industrial-size modular jigging plants,
advanced control systems and unique modelling tools, developed to extend the limits of jigging.

APIC Jigs of industrial and semi-industrial sizes are regularly supplied for both coarse and fine applications
for the local as well as international markets.

Toll treatment using gravity separation techniques and expert operation services can be supplied by our
partner ATOLL (www.atoll.co.za).

JIGGING - Toll Treatment

BATEMAN, through its subsidiary Titaco Projects (Pty) Limited and in collaboration with Mintek, builds, owns
and operates jigging plants on behalf of mining companies needing to upgrade ores and other enterprises
wishing to recover ferro-alloys from slag and waste product dumps. This service significantly augments
Titaco's traditional turnkey jigging plant design and construction business.

The service comprises a complete menu, from feasibility studies and raising finance, design and construction
to maintenance and operation. An attractive feature is that the client may select any of the elements required.
An option for clients with limited borrowing capacity or who do not wish to raise the necessary finances, is
that the plant could be owned by Titaco through a toll fee reimbursive arrangement. Another example is that
owners of existing jigging plants may simply contract Titaco to operate the plant for them.

The jigging process, developed in collaboration with its joint venture partner, Mintek, has been shown to be
effective and efficient in dealing with both coarse and fine material. It can recover alloys and metals from
slag dumps and upgrade coal and manganese and iron ores.

Bateman Titaco has successfully designed and built seven of these jigging plants in the past few years.
One of these upgrades manganese ores, one recovers ferro- and silico-manganese from slag and five
recover ferro-chrome from slag. The plants rely on under-bed air pulsed jigs (the Apic jig is the latest
generation of this type) to separate saleable material from waste.

The demonstrated advantages of this process are extremely high recoveries, clean product and an ability
to effect separation at large sizes. In the case of ferro-alloys, saleable metal fractions in excess of 25 mm
have been achieved. A large proportion of the alloy recovered is directly saleable at no discount.

Recoveries in excess of 95 % have been achieved in all Titaco ferro-alloy jigging plants. They are able to
separate 50 mm sized particles and in testwork the Apic jig has treated 70 mm material. Current research
and development at Mintek indicates that jigging of 100 mm material at high volumes will soon be a feasibility.

Enhancing jig performance

The APIC underbed air-pulsed jig effectively produces clean saleable products from raw materials by separating
particles of different densities. To further enhance performance APIC jigs can now be equipped with JIGSCAN.
JIGSCAN is supplied exclusively with new APIC Jigs but may be retrofitted to any existing jig of any design.

Computerised control

The JIGSCAN system is a fully integrated and computerised automatic jig control system. It has been used
industrially with great success to provide improved control over product quality and higher yields of
‘on-specification’ product. One JIGSCAN user has credited the system with an 8 % improvement in
on-specification product yield.

Much of the operator attention needed for efficient operation of a jig is reduced or eliminated. The system
automatically raises an alarm if separation efficiency drops and sequences start-ups and shut-downs to
optimise production. It controls all jigging functions and can interface with the plant in a variety of ways.

The JIGSCAN jig control system is the result of ten years of development by the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral
Research Centre (JKMRC), an internationally renowned self-funded research institute and consulting
organisation at The University of Queensland. Bateman Titaco and Mintek, which jointly develop and build
large metal recovery and mineral upgrading plants utilising underbed air-pulsed jigs, have recently signed
an agreement with JKMRC to collaborate in the future development of jigs with levels of control appropriate
to client requirements and the type of materials to be treated.

Backup technology and services

JKMRC has developed mathematical computer models which have radically improved jig design and enable
calculation of air consumption and estimates of jig lengths required for effective product separation.

The first model predicts the water motion in the jig depending on air valve settings, bed height and the physical
dimensions of the jig and its air valves. The model is dynamic and the effect of air valve settings on all water
velocity waveforms and pressure variations can be viewed interactively. As air consumption can be accurately
predicted, the blower can be sized correctly for all jigging operations.

The second model predicts particle stratification in a continuous jig as a function of jig throughput, bed depth
and water waveform. When used as a jig installation and optimisation design tool, special but simple tests
have to be conducted on the material to be separated in an instrumented jig, either at JKMRC or Mintek. Large
samples are not required as the tests are performed in batch mode.

PDF JIGGING BROCHURES

Apic Jig Under bed air-pulsed gravity separator

Apic Jigscan now fitted with JigScan

Jigging South-African coals - Paper

SYNOPSIS:

The last coal jig disappeared from the South African (SA) scene in May 2000, as the conclusion of a
long-term trend for DMS that achieves generally better efficiencies.

However, there was some faith in the use of jigs for SA coals, because of their low operating cost and
many advantages in operation, therefore pilot jigs, initially built for other applications, were tested with
SA coals, proving that the Apic jig responded very well on seams with easy to moderately easy washability
characteristics. A semi-industrial jig of 3m2, incorporating advanced mechanical features and control
system, was built at MINTEK in 1999 for demonstration to interested coal producers. Test campaigns
confirmed the performances, with Imperfections around 0,05 to 0,08 on destoning (at cutdensity around 2)
and around 0,1 at cut-density 1,50-1,60 when washing difficult coals.

The next step was the installation of a first industrial Apic jig in SA, a modular unit commissioned in
August 2000 in a Witbank mine, which toll produced from 60t/h of a 1 seam an export coal of less
15 per cent ash, with efficiencies above 90 per cent. In further test campaigns, jig viability was
demonstrated, and other modular units of larger capacity were built.

This “come-back” in coal of the modern air-pulsed jig is due to the technology itself, a philosophy of
more open operation, the choice now offered between modular or fixed plants entirely sourced from SA,
and also a stronger confidence in moving towards more difficult applications.

Today’s focus is in the economics of jigs, and a method is illustrated herein with numerical applications
and examples with 1,2, 4 and 5 seams from the Witbank area, to attempt illustrating the cases where
jigs are viable and where they are not.

KEYWORDS:

Jig, jigging, near gravity materials, SA coals, Imperfection, yield, destoning, Opex, modular plants,
control system.

A CADD rendering of an APIC jig. Particles of different densities in a homogeneous bed of solid material are stratified by water pulsed through the jig’s bed plate. JIGSCAN maintains a steady water pulse shape even when the feed content or throughput of material changes and closely controls the discharge of heavy material from the stratified bed. This ensures that optimal stratification, steady product quality and highest possible yields are obtained.

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