Concentrators:

Crushers and grinding mills are used to liberate the sulfide minerals from the other materials to begin the recovery of the Pd and Pt sulfide minerals. The floatation follows the grinding stage. Flotation reagents are added to aid in the separation of the Pd and Pt sulfide minerals from other material. In this process the slurry is agitated while air is induced into the system. This froth layer is then collected as concentrate and transported to the smelter.

Smelter:

Concentrate from the Stillwater and East Boulder Mines is sampled, dried, and pneumatically conveyed to a concentrate bin where it is fed to the electric furnace.
The electric furnace is rectangular with 3 in-line electrodes. Furnace matte is tapped approximately every 4-8 hours into ladles and granulated in preparation for converting in TBRCs (Top Blown Rotary Converters). Converter matte is poured into ladles, granulated, dried and transported to the Refinery.

Refinery:

The flow of material through the refining process follows a series of circuits in which palladium and other PGMs follow one path, other materials are separated and follow other paths that dissolve one metal, but not others. The three stage leach and metal recovery process selectively extracts nickel, iron, copper and other metals from the Platinum Group Metal (PGM) that result in a higher grade PGM filter cake being produced at the Stillwater base metals refinery for shipment to third party refiners.