Poorly specified or out-of-date screening media are seen as major contributors to slow production and high levels of downtime at processing plants.

Minerals processing equipment supplier, ELB Equipment, in partnership with international screen media manufacturer, Major Wire, provides solutions to fix screening problems at all types of processing plants.

The company’s technical sales representative Waynne Martin says the partnership enables its technical teams to identify the source of a screening problem and provide solutions to return equipment to the required specifications and improve on performance through the use of a wide range of Major Wire screen solutions for almost any application.

At a mine and quarrying site where imported anthracite was difficult to process due to its sticky, wet consistency, leading to severe delays in production, ELB Equipment asserts that the introduction of a Major Wire tensioned screen immediately boosted production by 50% and added a number of other benefits too.

The company highlights a number of other successful solutions, including:

• Upgrading traditional panel-type mesh screens to Major Wire’s Flex-Mat screens, allowing a major diamond producer to reduce carry over by more than 15%.
• One of the country’s largest cement producers was able to improve the production feed rate of highly abrasive dolomite to 360 tons an hour (t/h) from its previous 180 t/h, while also reducing carry-over from 35% to 0% and improving panels’ wear-life from a seven-week lifespan with traditional woven mesh, to more than 11 months. The improved wear-life led to a further reduction of wire diameter for even more open area while maintaining a lifespan of more than six months and also reducing maintenance by up to one hour on a single shift.
• A metal recovery plant experiencing severe pegging and blinding issues, with the screen requiring manual cleaning with the use of picks and hammers for at least two hours per day. An upgrade to a Major Wire tensioned screen solved the problem and no cleaning has been required thereafter.  A similar case reduced a major coal mine’s screening costs from 63c a ton using woven wire screens to just 23c a ton using Major Wire Flex-Mats.

“With the right products and expertise to boot, local distributor ELB Equipment has an entirely dedicated screening division dealing with mines and quarries to improve overall processes. Holistically it is not just about saving capacity on site, but rather problem-solving overall screening efficiency, cost of ownership, et cetera. We also provide training on site in order to get the whole team up to scratch when it comes to operation and maintenance of our screens. What’s more, customers can ask for a full vibration analysis on their existing screens to ascertain the speed, stroke and g-force of the equipment and measure its effectiveness before undertaking any upgrades so that the right screens can be fitted accordingly,” asserts Major Wire business development manager John Pelser.