What is mineral dressing

The first process most ores undergo after they leave the mine is mineral dressing(processing), also called ore preparation, milling, and ore dressing or ore beneficiation. Ore dressing is a process of mechanically separating the grains of ore minerals from the gangueminerals, to produce a concentrate (enriched portion) containing most of the ore minerals anda tailing (discard) containing the bulk of the gangue minerals.

Since most ore minerals are usually finely disseminated and intimately associated withgangue minerals, the various minerals must be broken apart (freed) or “liberated” before theycan be collected in separate products. Therefore, the first part in any ore dressing process willinvolve the crushing and grinding (which is also known by a common name called“comminution”) of the ore to a point where each mineral grain is practically free.