2. Introduction
Established in 1960 the Ashapura group is India’s largest
muti-mineral solutions provider. The multinational
group has mining & mineral processing facilities in
Belgium, Oman and Malaysia; in India it operates from
Rajasthan,Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala,
Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.
Ashapura also dominates the value added segments in
the country for Bleaching Clay, Clay Catalysts and
Calcined Bauxite.
3. One of the purest of the
clays,composed chiefly of the mineral
kaolinite usually formed when granite is
changed by hydrothermal
metamorphism. China clay occurs in
the deposits in the form of china clay
rock, a mixture of up to 15 per cent
china clay and up to 10 per cent mica,
and the remainder being quartz.
5. Processing:
1. Blunging:
The China Clay (kaolin) is mixed with water to create milk-shake-like slurry. Slurry
is simply the water and dispersed clay mixture, which puts the clay particles in
suspension.
6. De-gritting:
The slurried China Clay (kaolin) is usually transported through
pipelines to degritting facilities, where sand, mica and other
impurities are extracted with the help of gravity.
7. Solid-Liquid Separation:
• We feed 35-40% solid concentration slurry in to the filter press by stroke pumps to
separate water out of slurry. Due to stickiness of the clay we go up to 8 kg/cm2
pressure. After formation of clay cake the moisture content varies from 20-25%.
8. Filtering and Brightness enhancement:
With both the fine and coarse China Clay (kaolin) particle
fractions, brightness is enhanced through one or move
processes which will remove iron, titanium, organic, and
other undesirable materials.
9. Drying:
The wet cake having moisture 8 – 12% comes in contact with hot drying air in the
cage mill & gets conveyed to cyclone through dryer flash ducts & the drying takes
place in cage mill & flash duct. Water evaporation is around 8 % to 10%. Final product
is around 1 – 1.5% moisture & size is granules cum powder. The dried material gets
conveyed to cyclone separator & discharge through rotary airlock valve in the form of
dried granules cum powder. This granules cum powder are then passed through
pulverizer to make it powder as required. The fines are passed on to bag filter & are
discharged through rotary air lock valves.
10. Powdering and Packing:
After Sun drying we break the cakes in to small sizes
max 5” or powder as per the requirement of customer.
We make powder by hammer grinding mill.
