Vermiculite production plant

Vermiculite production plant is used for Expanded vermiculite and Vermiculite powder manufacturing. Expanded vermiculite ca by used as lightweight construction aggregate, and thermal insulation filler. When vermiculite is ground into a fine powder, it is used as a filler in inks, paints, plastics, and other materials.

Vermiculite production process

The Vermiculite powder manufacturing process used to produce commercial expanded vermiculite consists of two separate operations. The mining and concentrating operations that produce raw vermiculite flakes are conducted at one location. The exfoliation and classifying operations that produce various sizes of lightweight, expanded vermiculite granules for use in other products are conducted in another location.

Vermiculite Mining

Rocks containing vermiculite are dug from a huge open pit in the ground. The soil on top of the rocks, called the overburden, is removed with power shovels or earth scrapers. The resulting heap of loose rocks are scooped up with power shovels and dumped into trucks or train cars, which carry the rocks to a nearby Vermiculite processing plant.

Vermiculite Concentrating

The Vermiculite rocks are fed through a series of crushers and vibrating screens to reduce their size. The vermiculite is separated from the surrounding rocks and dirt using various wet or dry techniques depending on the particular mining operation. The vermiculite flakes extracted from various sections of the mine may be blended together before further processing to ensure uniformity of the product. Through froth flotation, gravity separations, winnowing, or electrostatic separation, either the vermiculite itself or the other materials are trapped and separated from each other until the resulting vermiculite flakes are about 90% pure by weight.

Vermiculite Grading

The separated vermiculite flakes are sorted by size. This may be done with a series of screens or it may be done in a long enclosed wind tunnel. The graded vermiculite flakes are dumped into large plastic bags or other containers for shipping to various exfoliation.

Vermiculite Exfoliating

The Vermiculite flakes are loaded onto a conveyor belt and lifted to the top of a 20-25 ft (6.1-7.6 m) high vertical furnace lined with ceramic bricks. As the flakes fall down the length of the furnace, they pass through one or more burners fired by natural gas. At the bottom of the furnace, the particles slide down an inclined plane. This delays the exit of the Vermiculite particles from the furnace and allows the vermiculite to be heated further in order to reach full expansion. Other Vermiculite exfoliation plants may use different furnace configurations, but the general sequence of operations is similar.

Vermiculite Classifying

The vermiculite may be ground and screened to produce a specific size or range of sizes before it is packaged for shipping. In some exfoliation plants, the larger particles may also be screened or sorted into various sizes, depending on the final use.

Vermiculite Production machine

SBM is a construction and mining equipments manufacturer in China, and offer types of machines for sale used for vermiculite production plant in Kenya, South Africa, Iran, China, Brazil, Zimbabwe, India and United States. We also desing vermicilite production process for Expanded and ground vermiculite manufacturing.

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