Sepro Laboratories, formerly known as Met-Solve Laboratories, is a full service metallurgical and mineral processing testing facility located in Langley of British Columbia. With the resources of Sepro Mineral Systems as a parent company, Sepro Labs is always on the cutting edge of developing and advancing centrifugal concentration technology. One of our featured pieces of equipment is the Falcon L40 laboratory gravity concentrator. By utilizing different bowl designs, testing flowsheets, and testing parameters, the Falcon L40 can be used to model the mineral recovery for the full-scale Falcon SB, Falcon C, or Falcon UF machines as well as other centrifugal concentrators.  

The Falcon L40 Test Programs

All variations of Falcon L40 test programs follow the same basic series of steps. Ore is crushed or ground to a target size as needed, mixed with water to create a slurry, and then is agitated in an overhead tank. The slurry is fed from the mixing tank into the L40 at a consistent rate while the L40 is on; the RPM, G force, and type of bowl depend on what type of test is being run. 

The higher specific gravity minerals, such as platinum group metals, sulfides and niobium are recovered into the concentrate bowl while the lower specific gravity gangue minerals are rejected to the tailings launder. Once the test is complete, the higher SG target minerals are collected along the concentration bed of the bowl; this can be seen in the video above as a band of dense material near the top edge of the bowl. The lower SG gangue minerals are collected in a separate container as tailings. Concentrate material may be panned to further upgrade the material while tailings may be run through for additional tests depending on the flowsheet design. 
Interested in finding out if your mineral resource can be processed with gravity concentration? Contact our mineral testing facility to see what options are available.