Delivery Excellence

Processing Platinum Group Metals (PGMs)

Bateman Engineering N.V.

Delivering Innovative Solutions to Unlock the Value of Natural Resources

Delivery Excellence

Bateman Engineering
With its more than ninety year heritage as a leading engineering-project house and equipment supplier, Bateman Engineering N.V. serves a range of industries worldwide. Our focus is on delivering innovative solutions to unlock the value of natural resources, through converting them into marketable products. Client access and project management services are provided globally through Batemans network of permanent international offices located in Australia, China, India, Russia, North and South America, Southern Africa, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Services offered include, but are not limited to, process engineering, specialist niche technologies, equipment supply and related services, procurement, project finance facilitation, contracting and project management. Bateman is committed to Delivering Excellence in everything that it does. For more information on Bateman, visit www.bateman.com.

Platinum Group Metals (PGM) Processing

Modikwa Platinum, South Africa.

Bateman provides the full range of capabilities to I Convert run-of-mine (ROM) ore to saleable products. I Integrate engineering and process know-how in development and optimisation of plant designs. I Deliver processing facilities to global environmental standards.

Project Services
I Consulting: Ore-body, production and market evaluation assesses project viability. I Feasibility studies: On-site and pilot-plant studies. I Project management: From inception through design and construction to commissioning, maximising success and profitability of the venture. I Comprehensive spares and after-sales back-up.

CAD rendering of reagent plant, Impala Platinum, South Africa.

Facilitation of Project Finance

Bateman structures, negotiates and secures optimal and cost-effective financial packages for projects of all sizes.

Flexible Contract Structuring

Turnkey, reimbursable, EPCM, lump-sum, fixed fee, joint ventures or any combination to suit client needs.

PGM Track Record

Flotation tank circuit, Aquarius Platinums Kroondal plant, South Africa.

Bateman has designed, engineered, procured and construction-managed process facilities for most primary PGM producers worldwide. It is the only independent contractor to have successfully installed all types of PGM process plants: concentrators, smelters and precious metals refineries.

Processing Technologies
For processing platinum group metals (PGMs), Bateman liaises with suppliers and evaluates equipment to make unbiased selections of the best equipment for the job. For stockpiling, materials handling, environmental protection and waste disposal, Bateman draws upon its comprehensive in-house and licensed range of engineered technologies or selects the most appropriate equipment from other suppliers.

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Ore Handling and Preparation

Bulk Materials Handling
Bateman designs and supplies materials handling systems to transport PGM bearing ores and tailings. I Conveyor systems to move ore and tailings to, from and within the processing plant. I Stockpile systems for efficient, effective and economic stacking, blending and reclaiming of ore and safe disposal of tailings. I Plants to process tailings and extract coarse material for use as backfill.

Comminution
Bateman designs comminution systems that take into account specific requirements of downstream metallurgical processes. I Crushing All forms of crushing circuits including in-pit, primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary crushing systems. I Grinding Circuits Large autogenous grinding (AG) and semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) circuits, as well as rod and ball milling. I Fine Grinding Tower mills, stirred mills and ISA mills for flotation concentrate re-grinding.
Conveyor transporting ore to feed the mills, Blue Ridge Platinum, South Africa.

Pre-concentration
Physical separation processes prior to flotation, upgrade flotation feed making use of differences in the physical properties of ore and gangue minerals. I Dense-Media Separation (DMS) DMS is very successful in processing PGMs and to remove waste from concentratorfeed streams. I Gravity Separation Spirals to recover chromite concentrate from PGM flotation feed. Jigs to recover metal from slag. Centrifugal separators to recover precious metals from milling circuits. I Magnetic Separation Use of magnetic separation to concentrate PGM from slow-cooled converter matte into a magnetic fraction.

Primary and secondary mills, Blue Ridge Platinum, South Africa.

Primary ball mill, Bafokeng Rasimone, South Africa.

Bateman Engineering N.V.

Delivery Excellence

Flotation and Dewatering

Flotation
During flotation, surface chemistry recovers valuable minerals or rejects gangue materials. I Flash Flotation In circuits employing multiple stages of milling, flash flotation cells recover liberated mineral species after each stage, in order to prevent overgrinding. I Conventional Flotation Design of banks of conventional flotation cells, and supply of proprietary cells.
Flotation cells, Blue Ridge Platinum, South Africa.

I Tank Cells Bateman has completed several installations of large tank cells in recent years. I Column Cells Column and Jameson cells, including pumping of high air content froths associated with fine grinding of concentrates. I Reagent Plants Packaged reagent plants, either as stand-alone or as part of concentrator plants.

Dewatering
Bateman designs and supplies unit processes to dewater flotation concentrate and tailings streams, before transfer to the next process. I Thickeners Conventional, high-rate, ultra-high rate and paste thickeners to dewater both concentrate and tailings streams. I Vacuum Filters Drum, disc and belt filters. I Filter Presses Recessed chamber and membrane presses to generate concentrate cake for sale and dry tailings for storage in arid locations. I Continuous Pressure Filters Horizontal plate pressure filters for both concentrators and refineries.

Bafokeng Rasimone Platinums Ultrasep thickener, South Africa.

First full scale Bateman Pneumo-Drier to be used in the platinum industry.

Bateman Engineering N.V.

PGM Extraction Pyrometallurgy

Pyrometallurgical plants process a high percentage of non-ferrous metal flotation concentrates.

Smelting
Electric-arc furnace technology, as well as other technologies such as flash smelting, Noranda and Tenienta processes, and top submerged lance furnaces.

Converting
Conventional Pierce-Smith converters, top-blown rotary converters and top-submerged lance furnaces.

Converter aisle at Hartley smelter, Zimbabwe.

Peripherals
Proprietary engineered systems. I I I I I I Belt, chain and pneumatic conveyors for furnace feed, sluices, etc. Metal, matte and slag tapping and granulation. Off-gas scrubbing. Baghouses. Electrostatic precipitators. Acid plants.
Impala Platinums converter-slag granulation plant, South Africa.

PGM Extraction Hydrometallurgy

Hydrometallurgical processes are more favoured than smelting for the treatment of PGM ore, concentrates and mattes.

Flotation
Bateman has wide experience of leaching processes and designs to process ore, concentrates and smelter mattes. I Tank Leaching: Acid and alkali leach processes carried out in trains of agitated tanks. I Medium-Pressure Leaching: Strong process group for autoclave design to process high-grade sulphide ore, concentrates and converter mattes. I High-Pressure Leaching: Design of leach processes utilising titanium-clad autoclaves operating at 240 C and 47 bar pressure. I Emerging Technologies: Heap leaching, including bacterial heap-leach processes, and novel leach processes, such as the Galvanox atmospheric leaching process, hold potential for PGM processing.

Tank farm, Impala Platinum Limited, South Africa.

Residue and Impurity Removal

Bateman has wide experience of leaching processes and designs to process ore, concentrates and smelter mattes. I Neutralisation: Neutralisation of the slurry or solution between leaching and downstream purification, which can be coupled with iron removal using a variety of reagents. I Clarifying, Thickening and Filtration: Counter-current decantation (CCD), counter-current filtration (CCF) clarifiers, pinned-bed settlers and sand filters. I Precipitation and Cementation: Precipitation processes that minimise operating cost and maximise metal recovery. I Other Processes: Solvent extraction (SX), ion exchange (IX) and molecular recognition technology (MRT) to remove minor impurities from solution streams before routing the solution to electrowinning (EW) circuits.
Concentrate leaching circuit, Impala Platinum Limited, South Africa.

Bateman Engineering N.V.

Delivery Excellence

PGM Purification
PGMs can be selectively separated by ion exchange (IX) technologies. Bateman has wide experience of impurities removal by purification or cementation and classical precipitation techniques.

Ion Exchange (IX)

One stop solution combining several IX technologies. Through an exclusive agreement with Mintek, Bateman offers traditional fixed-bed or fluidised bed technology, as well as novel resin-in-pulp (RIP) technology. The Mintek application base, combined with a testwork capability, enhances delivery of effective process solutions. RIP is successfully used to replace expensive solid-liquid separations prior to metal recovery. For environmental clean-up, RIP systems I Clean effluent streams and recover trace elements without costly ultrafine filtration. I Extract acid and recover metal from mine leach solutions.

Resin-in-pulp pilot plant.

Metals Recovery
Base metal refinery, Hartley Platinum, Zimbabwe.

Bateman offers expertise to extract trace amounts of metal contaminants from large volumes of solution flowing at many bed-volumes per minute, in a form and concentration worth processing further. I Copper recovery from in-situ mine-leach solutions and refinery bleed streams. I Production of cathode-quality copper from acid mine drainage streams at high flowrates. I Iron, aluminium, zinc, copper and manganese recovery from acid mine-drainage and waste streams.

Platinum purification section, Impala Platinum Limited Refineries, South Africa.

Bateman Engineering N.V.

Solvent Extraction (SX)

Bateman has wide experience of SX processes. I Bateman Reverse-Flow Settler: Provides substantial operational benefits over traditional mixer-settler design and enables side-by-side orientation of pump mixers, reducing capital costs and providing improved access for operators and maintenance. A coalescence enhancement channel and other design aspects provide higher process efficiencies and reduced organic loss. I Conventional Mixer Settlers: For processing PGMs, copper, cobalt and zinc.

Electrowinning (EW)
Bateman designs tankhouses from small heap-leach operations to large-scale, automated systems for EW and electrorefining (ER). I Electrolytic Cells: Batemans redesigned cells provide improved catholyte distribution flow patterns around each cathode, resulting in improved cathode quality. The design also accommodates anode bags and / or a close-capture aerosol / gas emission system, providing a safe working environment. I Tankhouse Layout: Low-cost manual and automated-strip plants. I Electrowinning, Melting & Casting Technology: Network of EW technology suppliers for refinery projects.
Cobalt solvent extraction circuit, Hartley Platinum, Zimbabwe.

Acid Plants
Bateman has expertise in drying installations and acid plants. It holds licence agreements with Noram Engineering and Constructors, Canada, The Sinopec Nanjing Engineering and Constructors Incorporation (SNEI), based in China, and Sulphurnet, based in the Netherlands.

Typical cobalt EW circuit.

PGM Refining
Bateman designs leading edge processes to first separate PGMs from base metals (nickel, copper and iron sulphide minerals) and then to process individual PGMs (Pt, Pd, Rh, Ir, Ru, Os), as well as gold.

Base-Metal Refining
Leaching, SX, IX, MRT, distillation and precipitation techniques to separate individual PGMs, and remove residual impurities.

Anode Slimes and Secondaries

Pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical processes to recover PGMs and gold from anode slimes generated in copper electrorefineries, or from secondary, PGM-bearing materials such as autocatalysts or electronic scrap.

Molecular-Recognition Technology (MRT) and strong-base resin technology

MRT is applicable to PGM refining. Strong-base resin technology is applied to remove iron from copper electrolyte.
Converter for sulphuric acid facilities.

Bateman Engineering N.V.

Delivery Excellence

Process Modelling
Bateman utilises simulation programs for front-end modelling of chemical and physical processes.

Steady-State Simulation
Limn, Metsim, Aspen and Pyrosim models for a range of unit operations commonly used in comminution, flotation, hydrometallurgy and pyrometallurgy operations. JK-SimMet for examination of comminution circuits.

Dynamic Simulation
SysCAD models transient operating conditions, providing upset analysis, surge verification and downstream debottlenecking. When interfaced with actual control hardware, it is a timesaving control system for debugging and an excellent training tool.
FEA of a DC furnace lining predicting the thermal gradients and wear pattern.

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

FEA and CFD are applied in design of furnace components and a wide range of other process and mechanical equipment. The response of structures to loads and flow characteristics of fluids and gases is determined without the need to build and test costly prototypes and to conduct lengthy field trials.

Engineering Design and Drafting

Proprietary and in-house developed software to develop cost effective designs. I 2D and 3D drafting provides a balance of cost effectiveness across the design office, fabrication shops, construction site and operator training requirement. I 3D-modelling packages.

CFD modelling of particle tracking in a slag granulation sump.

Delivery Excellence
Furnace roof with twin electrode arrangement and central feed port.

+27 11 899 9111 enquiries@bateman.com

More information is available at www.Bateman.com

Edition 11 Bateman Engineering N.V.