Sinonine deeply know that beneficiation operations are physical or mechanical unit operations where valuable mineral particles are separated from the mixture of liberated valuable mineral particles and gangue mineral particles. 

Every beneficiation operation is based on one or more physical properties in which valuable and gangue minerals differ in that property. Major beneficiation operations and the basis of separation are given in Table 1

Table 1 Beneficiation operations and basis of separation

The following important terminology is used in Mineral Industries.

1)Concentrate: The valuable mineral product obtained from the beneficiation operation.

2)Tailing: The waste or gangue mineral product obtained from the beneficiation operation.

Practically all the valuable mineral particles cannot be separated due to:

---- Incomplete liberation (degree of liberation 100%).

---- Inefficiency of beneficiation operation (efficiency of operation 100%).

Hence both the concentrate and the tailing contain locked particles of valuable and gangue minerals and the concentrate contains a little amount of gangue mineral particles and the tailing contains a little amount of valuable mineral particles.

3)Middling: If the valuable mineral particles are not completely liberated during the size reduction operations, (i.e. degree of liberation is less than 100%) some particles contain both valuable and gangue minerals. Such particles can be separated in a beneficiation operation as a third product. This third product is called middling. Usually, this middling product is comminuted for further liberation and then beneficiated.

To achieve the recovery to the maximum possible extent, the ore is repeatedly treated by using another unit of the same device. The following is the terminology in use in such cases:

1)Roughing: It is the operation of removal of a rough concentrate at the earliest stage of treatment of the ground ore. The device used is called Rougher( such as rougher flotation machine in flotation processing).

Figure 1 Flow sheet of three stage treatment

Figure 1.is a typical flow sheet showing a three stage treatment.

2)Scavenging: It is the operation of removal of the last recoverable fraction of valuables

before discarding the final tailing from the treatment plant. The device used for this purpose is called Scavenger( such scavenging magnetic separator in magnetic separation).

3)Cleaning: It is the operation of re-treating the rough concentrate to improve its quality.

The device used for this cleaning stage is called Cleaner.