Gravity Concentration: Hand Panning

Adel Nio L. Iligan, Rojin Ryanly B. Mondero, Rosselle Kim P. Castillano, Debbie G. Arnijo,
Lady Dawn C. Pillodar
METE 128: MINERAL PROCESSING LABORATORY

ABSTRACT
Hand panning is most commonly used to locate a richer paying area by sampling, so that larger
production equipment can be brought into that location to work the ground to recover more minerals especially
gold. In this experiment we used copper ore which already undergone crushing and grinding. Chalcopyrite is a
valuable metal that has been used throughout history for many different purposes. It has been mined for over 2,000
years. It is also a trace element that is needed to maintain many biological life forms and processes. Thus, hand
panning is one of the methods to procure chalcopyrite from ore. The pan is immersed in the water with sample,
and the mixture is thoroughly wetted and stirred. The pan, still under water, is then given a combination shaking
and gyratory motion. This allows the heavy particles to settle and brings the lighter material to the surface. At
intervals the pan is tilted, and the light surface material is washed off.

INTRODUCTION
Panning is a simple method of separating
particles of greater specific gravity from soil or
gravels by washing in a pan with water. It is one of
the principal techniques of the individual prospector
for recovering gold and diamonds in placer (alluvial)
deposits. Gold is a major example of metal having
high density and panning is commonly used, in
small scale, for recovering this type of metal. But in
this experiment, chalcopyrite is the main target to
separate from the gangue.
The use of vanning pan as a means for
separating heavy mineral from the gangue has been
a practice which dates back to the 15th century.
During those days, it has been found that minerals of
copper and lead tended to separate from the
invaluable portions of an ore by using a shallow pan
with a slight indentation in the center. Up to this
time, this procedure is still being used, especially by
the small scale miners in the various provinces in the
Philippines. Panning is considered as slow and
backbreaking work. This operation may be timeconsuming for the separation of valuable mineral
manually but this process has a little amount of
losses.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this experiment is to
familiarize the use of vanning pan in the separation
of chalcopyrite from the gangue. This specifically
aims to obtain the minerals present in the given ore.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Hand panning is a manual activity of

separating heavy particles. This activity helps any
individual realize what they can get by just simply
doing hand panning. This can contribute a mining
knowledge to those who are not taking up course
related to this field. The experiment gives an
informational and educational activity regarding
how heavy minerals separate from those in the
lighter ones.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The materials used in conducting this
experiment were aluminum pan, mineral sample,
balance, pail, 250mL beaker, pycnometer, tube and
aspirator, wash bottle.
The sample was crushed and ground so that
it passes a 100 mesh screen. A handful amount was
then taken just enough to fill for the size of the pan.
At first we used watch glass instead of vanning pan
but we observed that the recovery of concentrate was
much less than the tailings so we decided to used
aluminum pan which has greater area than watch
glass.
Sample was then placed in the aluminum
pan and water was added. Then, sample was mixed
thoroughly with hands to ensure that every particle
was submerged into the water. It was then slowly
rotated clockwise to redistribute the particles on its
specific gravity. Also, it was tapped every 5 seconds
to make sure that the particles are free to move for a
better redistribution and are not hindered by
overlapping from one another. The excess water was
then removed and collected to account for the losses.

Gravity Concentration: Hand Panning. Submitted to Engr. Leaniel C. Silva, Instructor. Page 1 of 3

The act of adding water and rotating the

pan was repeated until the water that comes out is no
longer turbid. The concentrate is then collected,
filtered and dried to obtain the weight of the product.
The specific gravity of the product was then
determined using pycnometer. Figure I shows the
process flowchart in this activity.

Table 2. Determination of Specific Gravity of

Concentrate and Tailings for Trial 1

Figure 1. Process Flowchart for Hand Panning

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The experiment is intended to get some
informative data that can be analyzed. The data
shown in this article is according to the performance
of the student following the guidelines and
instructions given by the instructor.

Table 1. Ore Specific Gravity Determination

Table I above shows the data for getting the
specific gravity of ore. Weight of empty
pycnometer, pycnometer and water, and small
amount of ore were obtained.
In calculating the specific gravity of ore,
we used the formula:
=

0 + ( )

Where,
W0 = (Weight of pycno + ore) pycn (empty)
WA = Weight of pycnometer + water
WB = Weight of pycno + ore + wate

The values in the table are recorded after

the experiment has been performed. The weight of
feed ore was handful amount before doing the actual
panning. Then the weight of the concentrate and
tailings after filtration and drying was determined.
The specific gravity of both concentrate and tailings
was determined after a series of procedure in trial 1
and 2.
Hand Panning technique for concentrating
materials
gives
several
advantages
and
disadvantages. They produce comparatively little
environmental pollution, the efficiency of gravity
processes increases with particle size. One major
disadvantage is the time that it takes to let the
concentrates collect with very less amount of tails
accompanied into it.
Consequently, slow rate of production is
operated in this kind of gravity concentration. It can
only process a limited volume of material and thus it
is not normally used as a production tool in
commercial use, tiresome and needs an ample
amount of time to accomplished and slow and
relatively uneconomical, especially for large-scale
operations. Human errors are possible in this case
since the prospector is not perfect by nature. The
prospector itself can build problems in the middle of
the conduction of hand panning such as too much
rotation in the pan, adding too much water which
causes the spill of some sample, incorrectly
throwing the tailings and collecting concentrates,
and so much more.
The good thing in hand panning is that it is
inexpensive process. Most of the tools needed are
commonly found even at home. Also, the products
obtained contain a very less amount of unwanted
minerals since it is manually operated. Any
individual who has the ability to understand easy

Gravity Concentration: Hand Panning. Submitted to Engr. Leaniel C. Silva, Instructor. Page 2 of 3

instructions can perform this genre because it only

deals with a very basic conduction. Additional
advantage is that the operation is very simple in the
process of obtaining valuable minerals.

gravity minerals stay at the edge corner of the

vanning pan. The high gravity minerals will most
likely to settle at the bottom part of the pan, while
the middlings will stay in between the low and high
dense minerals.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

From the given data above, the specific
gravity obtained in concentrate from the experiment
in trial 1 and 2 has a value of 3.84 g/mL and 3.89
g/mL, respectively. Therefore, the mineral present in
the ore cannot be inferred that it contains
chalcopyrite which has a standard specific gravity of
more or less 4 g/ml. This is mainly due to the amount
of middlings and impurities that are still in contact
with the final concentrate. But it can be recovered
through further grinding and hand panning.

Table 2. Determination of Specific Gravity of

Concentrate and Tailings for Trial 2
In calculating for the recoveries, substantial
amount of copper is still found in the middlings. In
order to minimize these losses, there must be an
increase in liberation between the minerals because
this will produce middlings and a low degree of
liberation. New approaches to increasing the degree
of liberation involve directing the breaking stresses
at the mineral crystal boundaries, so that the rock can
be broken without breaking the mineral grains
(Wills and Atkinson, 1993).
The factor that would greatly affect the
recovery of the copper using this technique is the
amount of the feed which can greatly affect the
efficiency of the process. Since this method is only
used for small amounts of ore, production is limited.
The kind of minerals present and the time in panning
may contribute also an almost perfect collection of
the useful minerals.

The factors that would greatly affect the

settling of heavy minerals are the size, specific
gravity and density of the sample. The largest and
lightest grains concentrate can be found at the
surface after hand panning while the smallest and
heaviest grains are at the base. The minerals present
in the ore could not be identified since the course of
the experiment were only limited to the hand
panning stage. No further analysis was made to the
sample, thus minerals present in the ore sample were
not obtained and the components of the minerals
could not be known. It should be noted that in order
to distinguish the minerals present in the sample, this
activity should not limit itself to the hand panning
process only but also to the necessary experiment to
identify the minerals present in the collected sample.
The materials to be used should be neat as
much as possible so it wont affect the over-all
performance of hand panning. The vanning pan
should be properly rotated during the experiment so
that more light minerals will go to the surface of the
water.

REFERENCES
Dicinoski, W. A Revolution In Copper Recovery. Mining
Magazine Page 258, May2000
Wills, Barry A., Napier-Munn, Tim. An Introduction to the
Practical Aspects of Ore Treatment and Mineral Recovery, 7th
Edition. Elsevier Science & Technology Books, October 2006.
Home page of www.pantheonsteel.com. Stored by
web.archive.com on October 16, 2007. Retrieved 2016-04-3.

Figure 2. Distribution of Particles in the Pan

The image in figure II shows the
distribution of minerals in the metal pan. The low

Gravity Concentration: Hand Panning. Submitted to Engr. Leaniel C. Silva, Instructor. Page 3 of 3