Other zinc compounds As a dissolving agent, to help prevent plastics from cracking, in surgical dressings, glues, and to preserve and fire-proof timber. The ores of zinc usually occur together with other ores. Previously we had relied only on wool and wheat for the nation s wealth. However, until the early 1900s much of the mined zinc was wasted, as it could not be efficiently separated out from the other ores and waste rock. The waste rock material sank to the bottom.
Most zinc mines are underground operations.
The zinc ore is blasted, scooped up by front-end loaders, taken in large trucks to underground crushers, then hoisted to the surface up one of the shafts. At the surface, the ore is crushed further and subjected to the froth flotation method, then heated and treated in other ways to purify the zinc and separate it from any other metals. Our main zinc mines are at McArthur River in the Northern Territory and Cannington in Queensland. The Century zinc mine, also in Queensland, will be the world s largest zinc mine when it reaches full production, and Australia s only large open-pit zinc mine. They did not actually realise that zinc was a metal.