The key points of heavy media beneficiation are as follows:

(1) Before feeding, the ore must be crushed to the particle size range required for heavy media beneficiation. Because heavy media beneficiation cannot effectively separate fine particles, fine particles must be screened out before feeding. Sludge will seriously interfere with the heavy media beneficiation process, so it must be washed away before feeding. Generally, water can be sprayed onto the screen surface during screening to wash the ore, but when the ore is cemented by clay, a special washing machine must be set up for desliming.

(2) The weighting material must be ground to a certain fineness. When the weighting material is in block form, it must be crushed and ground, and then water is added according to the required suspension density to prepare a suspension. Generally, the density δ of the weighting material and the required physical density p of the suspension are known. The solid-liquid mass ratio is calculated using the following formula:

Then, suspensions of any volume can be prepared according to this ratio. For example, to prepare a suspension with a density of 2.5 g/cm³ using magnetite with a density of 5.0 g/cm³, the solid-liquid ratio is:

that is, magnetite mass: water mass = 3:1. Taking 3 parts by mass of magnetite and adding 1 part by mass of water to prepare the suspension meets the requirements.

(3) When using a heavy media separator, the feed rate and the density of the suspension should be kept stable, especially the density fluctuation range should not exceed ±0.02. Therefore, frequent sampling and measurement are necessary, or an automatic control device should be installed to control the suspension density.

(4) The recovery and regeneration of the heavy media are key operations in heavy media separation. Both the light and heavy products discharged from the separator carry a large amount of heavy suspension. The simplest method is to use a vibrating screen to remove the media. This is often done in two stages. The media removed from the first stage of the screen retains its original properties and can be directly reused. The second screening stage requires water spraying to wash away the weighting substances adhering to the ore. The resulting suspension has a smaller mass fraction and contains more pollutants. Depending on the properties of the weighting substances, they can be purified by magnetic separation, flotation, or gravity separation. Then, they are dewatered by equipment such as hydrocyclones and inclined plate thickeners, and then reformulated and returned to the process.