Mineral aggregates. Under modern technological and economic conditions, metals or other products can be processed and extracted from minerals on an industrial scale. Originally, it referred to solid matter mined from metal deposits, but has now expanded to non-metallic minerals such as sulfur, fluorite and barite that accumulate in the parent rock after formation.
The ratio of the weight of useful components (elements or minerals) in an ore to the weight of the ore is called ore grade. Precious metal ores such as gold and platinum are expressed in grams per ton, and other ores are often expressed in percentages. Ore grade is often used to measure the value of an ore, but the composition of the vein stone (useless minerals in the ore or minerals with very little useful components and cannot be used) and the amount of harmful impurities in the same effective component ore also affect the value of the ore.
Generally divided into poor ore, ordinary ore and rich ore. Sometimes it is only divided into poor ore and rich ore. There is no unified standard for this division. Generally, each industrial sector and mining area has its own calculation range. According to the properties of the useful minerals contained and the characteristics of utilization, it is divided into two categories: metal ore and non-metallic ore. The phenomenon that the grade of the ore mined during the mining process is reduced due to the mixing of waste rock or the loss of high-grade ore is called ore depletion. Ore depletion will increase transportation and processing costs and reduce the production capacity and recovery rate of the ore processing department. If the waste rock contains harmful impurities, it will also reduce the quality of the final product. Ore depletion is mainly expressed by the ore depletion rate (the ratio of the difference between the industrial ore grade and the mined ore grade to the industrial grade, expressed as a percentage).