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By M. Wierink

The lifecycle of a resource, specifically a metal, is often depicted as circle from primary production from mining to minerals processing and via manufacturing and use to disposal and recycling. When a material is recycled, it is considered as saved energy compared to producing the material from primary source. This is, however, a simplified representation. At each step of the life cycle, there are changes in the quality of the material due to different materials chemical and physical interaction, phase transformations due to diffusion, radiation etc. Due to these physical and chemical phenomena there are losses of material, which as determined by thermodynamics are not recoverable within the life cycle. This can be considered as an increase embodied energy per mass unit of substance and loss exergy from the material cycle. With low cyclic loss, the material will remain in the recycling loop for a long time, while with high cyclic loss it will disappear fast. Where you put the material determines how fast it disappears from the resource cycle. In this research paper the phenomena of quality degradation of material and idea of increase of embodied energy and exergy loss within a resource cycles is portrayed. The cyclic nature of material states and transitions and energy consequences of material quality degradation as well as the parameters affecting the length of the time scales of the material cycles are described. Currently the cyclic embedded energy and the history of material is not taken under consideration in generic life cycle assessment. This easily results into a conclusion that lifetime of product is optimized only in terms of how much energy an appliance uses during its lifetime, while ignoring the loss of embedded energy due to the effects caused by the environs the material is subjected to during the cycle. Better description of the time properties of material give us a possibility to design toward optimum lifetime of products in terms of resource efficiency. Keywords: product lifetime, material lifetime, recycling, cyclic resource efficiency, material state, material quality, exergy, embodied energy

Sep 1, 2012

By Anuj Narang

Large-scale separation or flotation cells, used in the primary extraction in the oil sands industry, are integral parts of the overall process of bitumen extraction. Good regulation of the interface level between the bitumen froth and the middlings in these cells can result in a significant improvement in bitumen recovery and throughput, and heavily influence process economics. Automatic control of such industrial processes presents challenges such as multi-phase flow dynamics, variable process gain and time delays, poor quality of measurements and significant disturbances. This paper details a case study application of development of multiple models of the dynamics of the interface level and the design of model predictive controllers (MPC) for a separation cell process. A Model predictive controller (MPC) using linear models is designed and implemented in real time on an industrial separation cell. The industrial implementation results show that the MPC scheme provides significant benefits over the current operations which use a PID controller. The benefits include significant reduction in the variance of the interface level resulting in higher bitumen recovery and smoother downstream operation plus energy savings due to reduced underflow pump speed.

Sep 1, 2012

By J. X. Zhang, F. S. Niu

"In order to accurately detect whether the collision occurs between particle and bubble in flotation process, a collision detection method of particle and bubble, which based on morphological image processing and Otsu method, is presented. First of all, it utilizes image pre-processing to optimize images, the target area and the background area are segmented by Otsu method. Then, particle and bubble are fitted to a circle combined with the least-square method. It’s convenient to obtain the coordinate information and radius. Finally, the position of all particles is extracted to an image, which achieves the particle tracking and avoids the complexity of the continuous frame image tracking.Experimental analysis shows that the relationship between the two ordinate difference d and the bubble radius r has a certain influence on the collision detection when the dripping particles are close to the bubble, when d>r, the detection accuracy is 92%;When d=1/2r, the detection accuracy is 97%;When d=0, the detection accuracy is 100%. The result indicates that this algorithm can detect the collision between particle and bubble quickly, and the working hours of manual test are saved effectively ,the best position of dripping particles close to the bubble which is taken with a CCD camera should be in the range of the particle and bubble’s ordinate difference less than half of the bubble radius.INTRODUCTIONFlotation is an important technical means to separate useful minerals from ores. The flotation process of ores and materials in the world is treated by flotation technology up to billions of tons every year, so the study of flotation process is particularly important. Raising the collision probability between mineral particles and bubbles in flotation process is one of the key factors to improve flotation separation efficiency[1]. The study indicates that[2-4] the collision probability between particles and bubbles is influenced by many factors, such as particle density, particle size bubble size, etc. The analysis of these influential factors requires a lot of experiments. Therefore, it is of great significance to design an accurate collision detection method for the research of this field."

Jan 1, 2018

By Chris A. Fleming

"The ability to recover cyanide from gold plant tailings has been known almost as long as the cyanidation process has been practiced, but there has been little incentive to process tailings in this way in the past. With the development of technologies that make it possible to recover and recycle free or complexed cyanide directly from gold plant slurry tailings, which indicates, on paper at least, significant cost savings compared to cyanide destruction, coupled with the introduction of legislation to seriously limit the discharge of cyanide to the environment in most gold-producing regions of the world, many companies are evaluating the cyanide-recovery alternative.There is arguably an even more compelling reason for mining companies to consider cyanide recycling. With the growing storm of negative public opinion that the use of cyanide in the mining industry is attracting - following several highly publicized spills over the last couple of years - the time has come for the gold industry to demonstrate environmental diligence and stewardship in the use of this commodity that is so vital for their industry. There is no doubt that the widespread implementation of cyanide recycling will reduce the impact of the cyanidation process on the environment, both by reducing the risk of spills (with less cyanide being transported from manufacturing plants to gold mines), and by reducing the loading of toxic and nontoxic metals and ions in the tailings.This paper briefly discusses the pros and cons of the different processes that are available for the treatment of gold plant tailings to regenerate and recovery cyanide for recycling, and presents a techno-economic argument for the incorporation of this technology into many gold plant flowsheets today."

Jan 1, 2003

By Carlos Gualdron, Elizabeth Gomez, Rafael Bolivar

The productivity index of the Coopracarcegua Ltda., a mid-size coal mining company of Norte de Santander, Colombia, was related absenteeism using accident, productivity and profit data four years. The analysis was based on type, severity and frequency of accidents, number of absentee days; price per metric ton, and other relevant parameters. The enterprise is formed by 5 different mines of thermic coal, each one with different exploitation technologies and different productivity. Each mine was analysed separately and the loss of profit due to absenteeism was calculate for each one. The study showed that the foregone earnings due to absenteeism in terms of the whole productivity of the enterprise was about of 6.6% of the total profit average the 4 years, with calculated values of 14.7%, 3.5%, 8.4% and 4% per year in the evaluated period. The study identified that the most important cause of absenteeism was "General Disease". The foregone earnings in 2009, the highest loss for the analysed period, was about US$ 0.937 million and during the whole evaluated period was US$ 2.46 million.

Jan 1, 2014

By G. J. Feng

Based on detailed theoretical analysis of coarse floatation and three-phase froth, a laboratory system which contains a new type of froth floatation equipment is established. Through water experiment, the relationship among floatation dynamics parameters of the equipment is studied and the best work parameters are educed too. Based on all of above, Slurry test is carried out in a copper concentration plant. Granule between 0.28~0.45mm can be reclaimed successfully. The slurry test proves that to separate coarse minerals in froth floatation equipment is a kind of effective method, it is well worth to make a further study.

Jan 1, 2014

By M. Vulkov

The paper is focused on the optimal selection of grinding medium for a drum mill. The decision-making is based on the fuzzy multiple attribute approach. One way to optimize the grinding process in a tumbling mill is associated with the development and testing a new shape of grinding body. Family of new grinding bodies ? spheroidal tetrahedrons (tetraballpebs) has been manufactured. Two types of spheroidal tetrahedrons and a classical ball (sphere) with one and the same weight are compared. A fuzzy entropy method to calculate the weight of the attributes is suggested. A grinding body which is the best approximation to the fuzzy formulated technological conditions is selected. Keywords: grinding, spheroidal tetrahedrons (tetraballpebs), balls, fuzzy sets

Sep 1, 2012

By M. Paymardi, A. Foroutan, T. P. Oladele, M. Abbaszadeh

"Reducing the amount of zinc and iron in lead concentrate is one of the important aspects of processing in lead and zinc flotation plants which results in improvement of lead concentrate quality and prevents zinc loss. In mineral flotation industries, lignin sulfonates are known for their depressant properties for both non-metallic and sulfide minerals such as pyrite and pyrrhotite.This paper investigates the effect of lignin sulfonate on flotation of galena, sphalerite and pyrite in sulfidic lead and zinc bearing ores. Batch flotation tests were carried out on a high pre-activated zinc samples. The feed contains 0.9% lead, 2.3% zinc and 7.5% iron. The dosage of all reagents such as sodium cyanide, zinc sulfate, ethyl xanthate and methyl isobutyl carbinol (MIBC) were kept constant for lead flotation step except calcium lignin sulfonate (CLS) that was varied between 0 and 80 gr/ton.Results for lead rougher concentrate showed that the grade of lead increased by 2.7% while the recovery decreased around 4 % at the highest dosage of CLS. Furthermore, zinc recovery decreased by 6.3% with no significant change in grade. Iron recovery in lead rougher concentrate decreased by 2.3 % while the grade changed around 1%. In sphalerite flotation step, CLS dosage was changed in the range of 0 to 80 gr/ton while the dosage of other reagents such as copper sulfate, lime, amil xanthate and MIBC were kept constant. In this step, no decreasing in grade and recovery of zinc was observed, while iron recovery decreased. It was suggested that CLS has a depression effect on sphalerite in conjunction with other zinc depressants such as zinc sulfate and sodium cyanide. CLS was further used in plant with non-pre-activated zinc minerals. Similar trends were observed in plant.INTRODUCTIONlead-zinc sulfide minerals play an important role in the production of lead and zinc metals in the mineral processing industry (Luo, Feng et al. 2016). Due to complexity of the lead-zinc ores mineralogy, in some situations, their flotation properties vary significantly from one deposit to another one even in itself (Bulatovic 2007)."

Jan 1, 2018

By Xu Wang, Bang Chen, Xiujian Luo, Wei Tang, Xiao’ou Xia, Fangming Liu

"The inertia cone crusher has lots of advantages, such as big crushing ratio, fine particle size, material layer crushing, good passing tramp iron performance and stable technical index, realized open crushing circuit and simplified crushing flowsheet. The crusher was input to China’s Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (BGRIMM) from Russia’s Mekhanobr-Tekhnika Research & Engineering Corporation at the beginning of the 1990s. This paper introduces that after years of absorption and innovation how Chinese researchers optimized and creatively designed about transmission mechanism, bracing structure, kinetic parameters, lubrication system, dust sealing system, damping system and hydraulic control system etc on the basis of keeping its advanced theory and unique structure, therefore the crusher’s stability was raised and the usage cost was reduced greatly. Accordingly the inertia cone crusher in China has been widely used in many fields, such as mineral resources and the recycling of metallurgical slag. The achievement in cooperation was fully affirmed by governments of Russia and China, and cooperation of science and technology in the mining and metallurgy industry between Russia and China is promoted greatly. INTRODUCTION From the early 1950s, the former Mekhanobr Institite(now Mechanobr-Tekhnika Research & Engineering Corporation) devoted itself to the research of inertial cone crusher and put it into industrial application in the late 1980s. Inertial cone crusher is like a maverick flower in the field of crusher. With its excellent performance and excellent application effect, it shocks the world and is destined to shine with a bright future. In the early 1990s, the chief leaders of the Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (BGRIMM), Academician Sun Chuan-yao and Professor Zheng Baochen, captured the extraordinary performance and strong vitality of inertial cone crusher with keen eyes. So the two big institutes started the cooperation to introduce inertial cone crusher to China. Since then, Inertia cone crusher has been able to flourish in China and have achieved impressive results with two institutes’ continuous effort."

Jan 1, 2018

By S. K. Chaudhuri

With a growing emphasis on maximizing the value by rapidly deploying it across their assets, mining firms are eager to identify any issues that may hinder such efforts and to refine their approaches to overcome them. As such a CDE vision can be considered realized when the following components are addressed and functioning as intended - People: the right resources working together and efficiently to achieve shared goals, Process: well-defined workflows mapped out for key value processes, Technology: availability of the correct tools and applications to increase efficiency in work execution and Locations: regional locations/ sites that need to be linked for collaboration and information exchange. For the above vision, an approach that considers the degree of interaction between the roles in metallurgy operations, mineral resource planning, mine engineering, plant operations, logistics and infrastructure, and which accounts for the current technology states across these groups to determine sub-processes where the impact of a CDE will be the most is critical. In effect, CDE is more about transforming an organization?s operational philosophy than a technology driven project. This paper examines the definition and components of a CDE in a mining context. Real-time operations co-ordination, maintenance interventions, production analysis and optimization processes are examined along with current state technologies and manual processes as candidates which are likely to result in most benefits from collaborative work processes. Finally, the paper examines technologies that can be used to further enable a collaborative working environment.

Sep 1, 2012

By Xuliang Yang, Yuemin Zhao, Bo Zhang, Liang Dong, Cheng Sheng, Gongmin Li, Zhenfu Luo, Yaqun He, Chenlong Duan

Coal plays an important role in the primary energy consumption of all over the world. In 2012, coal reached the highest share (29.9%) of global primary energy consumption since 1970. Coal burning mainly contributes to the emission of SO2, NOX, Hg and other impurities that jeopardize the future of environment. . Beneficiation before coal utilization is the most economical and effective technology for removing the hazardous material and gangue. In this paper, a novel process of dry beneficiation based on gas-solid two-phase flow composed of the compound dry cleaning separator (FGX), the air dense medium fluidized bed separator (ADMFB) and the vibrated fluidized bed with autogenous medium (VFB) is proposed. The main equipment and the flowsheet of the united system are described in detail. Separating principle of the FGX, ADMFB and VFB devices are all based on gas-solid two-phase flow. In FGX, gassolid suspension is composed of continuous gas flow and coal powder in feed coal. Large size coal (+6- 80mm) can be pre-separated effectively, and large size gangue can be removed effectively. Moreover, - 6mm particles fed serve as autogenous medium in FGX. The probable E value is 0.13 for -80 mm raw coal. In ADMFB, magnetic powder with -0.3 + 0.045 mm size fraction and coal powder in feed coal are compound medium solids. The separation density can be adjusted and controlled according to properties of raw coal. -50 + 6 mm raw coal can be cleaned efficiently, the probable E value is 0.05. In VFB, -6 + 1 mm coal can be separated. Generally, -80 mm raw coal can be cleaned efficiently in the united system based on gas-solid two-phase flow.

Jan 1, 2014

By X. W. Lv

The intelligent recognizing and processing system for sinter ore mineragraphy make a great convenience of recognition and measurement. Specially, it?s critical important for a successful intelligent system to extract the minerals? feature accurately and sufficiently. Reflection index, as the crucial feature of mineral, is calculated by the theoretical calculating model of index based on the principle of imaging color models. In gray histogram of minerals? micrograph, the peaks? positions represent the information about mineral categories and contents. The relationships of different minerals? peak-positions in curve of gray histogram were got by using the peak-find model of gray histogram and calculating model of reflection index. These two models which can be regard as the method of feature extraction for minerals? photomicrograph also lay a good foundation for the artificial intelligent system of recognition and processing in sinter ore.

Jan 1, 2014

By Elisabeth Schmidt

The conventional Canadian oil sand processing, the Clark Rowe process, is associated with many risks for the environment and high energy costs. To recover the bitumen from the oil sand (tar sand), large quantities of water have to be heated up and mixed with caustic soda and the oil sand. During this process, tailings with stabilized clay colloids are formed and dumped in tailings ponds. To avoid these disadvantages, a new, non-aqueous extraction process is to be established. Organic solvents are used instead of water and caustic soda to mobilize the bitumen from the sand-clay mixture. Pressure filtration, washing and steam pressure filtration are part of the new concept. A mixture of organic solvents and the oil sand is first pressure filtrated in a nutsch filter until a saturation level of one is obtained. After the cake has been formed, the filter cake is washed with organic solvent to flush the bitumen loaded solvent out of the cake. The following steam pressure filtration mechanically and thermally removes the remaining volatile components of the solvents from the filter cake. The filtrates from the pressure filtration, the washing phase and partly from steam pressure filtration are subsequently thermally treated to recover the organic solvents and obtain a higher bitumen concentration in the mixture. This mixture is then lead to an upgrader to win synthetic crude oil (SCO). The recovery of bitumen in the conventional hot water extraction process based on the Clark Rowe process can, in highly optimized plants, achieve between 88 and 92 %. Variation of oil sand properties leads to an actual range of between 80 and 90 % of bitumen recovery. With the alternative process based on organic solvents, the bitumen recovery exceeds the recovery of the conventional process by up to 16 percentage points. The composition of the two organic solvents in the first step of forming a suspension with the oil sand is important. The aromatic component is crucial for liberating and solving the asphaltenes, which tend to flocculate. The order of the two components of organic solvents is also important in the washing step. The paraffinic component is essential to achieve successful steam pressure filtration with respect to fast steam breakthrough and a filter cake free from organic compounds, as a result of its lower boiling point. Keywords: oil sand, filtration, organic solvents, pressure filtration, steam pressure filtration, filter cake washing

Sep 1, 2012

By Victor V. Karmazin

"The appearance of the precise equipment for analysis of results of the laboratory tests with using of the computer processing allows raising accuracy of the estimation of the expected indexes of the mineral processing. Certainly, laboratory tests will not be able to substitute completely industrial ones, but allow reducing the amounts of the industrial tests, that vastly reduces the cost of technological forecast and preparation of data for projection.Calculation of the potential indexes of mineral technology (mass yields and the metal content in products) is fulfilled on the base of results of measurements of the mineralogical liberation parameters using special formulas.The quality of the concentrate ßc = a + ?l • ?s • ?i (ßt - a) can be achieved on a level of the theoretical metal content of a mineral - ßt only if coefficients of mineral processing, of liberation ?l and selectivity ?s of grinding, effectiveness of separation, will reach 1 (a - metal content of the row ore).Increase ?l by overgrinding automatically decrease ?s, and only by destroying of particles of ore along surfaces of accreting of minerals (?i = 1) and when values of all three coefficients will aim to 1, then ßc ? ßt.The degree of liberation of the useful mineral is the ratio of mass of free grains of the useful mineral in the product to general mass of the same mineral in this product. The factor of the liberation, which is defined by curves of dressability by angle of slop of the curve of the elementary faction - ?, is Kr=1 – tga. Kr changes from 0 to 1 when a changes from 45o to 0o. The liberation is reached by grinding of the material, although degree of the liberation, as a rule, is lower than the degree of the grinding."

Jan 1, 2003

By Jacek Kolacz

A new sensor based sorting system related to complex image analysis has been developed at Comex AS - Norway. It makes it possible to separate different mineral particles regarding their color, shape, texture, size, density and indirectly their composition. The sorting system has been successfully tested and applied for sorting minerals providing high separation efficiency in the range of 95-99.9 %. The main advantage of this system is connected with its universality where many material parameters are analyzed in the same processing unit by a single passage.

Sep 1, 2012

By Gábor Mucsi, Barnabás Csoke, Viktor Mádai, Zoltán Molnár, Viktor Török, Ádám Rácz

The application of the stirred media mill in dry mode came to the front only in recent years, but at the same time several questions arise, such as aggregation, agglomeration, sticking on the liners and the grinding media. During high energy milling, not only the particle size reduces, but among others, in numerous cases the crystal structure and the amorphous state of the material also change due to the mechanical activation taking place. The present paper deals with experiments carried out on the ultrafine fly ash grinding in dry mode at various grinding conditions in a stirred media mill to investigate the mechanochemical effect and the energy efficiency of the mill. During the experiments the particle size distribution, particle shape, specific surface area, amorphity and crystal structure of the products were examined. The product related stress model was used for the evaluation of the effect of milling parameters on the mechanical activation. It was found, based on the experimental results, that there is mechanochemical effect on crystal structure of fly ash in the stirred media mill, as it was revealed by X-ray diffraction and FTIR measurements. The experimental results made it possible to determine the effect of the rotor circumferential speed and so the stress intensity on the mechanical activation of fly ash could be revealed.

Jan 1, 2014

By Tsuyoshi Hirajima, Hideyuki Okamoto, Himawan .. T. B. M. Petrus, Keiko Sasaki

"Flotation of arseno bearing minerals from their copper ore has been an interest due to the increasing awareness on protecting the environment by minimizing the possibility of exposed arsenic compound. Some approaches have been proposed, but the mechanisms of separations have not yet fully understood. In this study, oxidation using oxygen was applied. Instead of the complex copper ore flotation results, pure single mineral of tennantite and chalcopyrite foatability was conducted using Hallimond tube. Resembled with the flotation results of copper concentrate containing tennantite, the separation possessed the best result at alkaline condition (pH 11) at where the arsenic content was reduced from 3300 ppm to 1800 ppm. In order to be able to understand the mechanism of the separation atomic force microscope (AFM) was utilized. AFM images showed changes in morphology and behavior when minerals were treated in both acid and alkaline condition. It was found that the morphological change showed the reaction products representing the rate of reactivity of tennantite and chalcopyrite. From the measured force of adhesion, it can be observed that in alkaline condition the surface of both minerals is more hydrophilic than that in acidic condition possessing higher value. This is in accordance with the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) spectra in which hydroxide moieties occupied the mineral surface in alkaline condition while elemental sulfur is in acidic condition."

Jan 1, 2014

By Samira Rashidi, Robert Dunne, Raj Rajamani

"High Pressure Grinding Rolls (HPGR) are known for more energy saving, better particle weakening and higher tonnage compared to semi-autogenous/ball mill circuits. These machines are scaled up based on the roll diameter. Therefore, studies in lab-scale HPGRs are always preferred because less weight of feed sample is required to run batch tests. The 50-hp laboratory-scale machine at the University of Utah is the first-ever lab-scale machine designed by late Prof Schönert, the inventor of HPGR. This 200x100 mm [DxL] HPGR is equipped with a robust data acquisition system, which enables running steady state tests using a feed sample as small as 6 kg to 12 kg. This paper presents the HPGR grinding study on two different categories of ores, one hard ore and the other soft. A test series has been performed to evaluate the energy consumption and the relation with size reduction on open multi-pass and locked-cycle HPGR circuits. The effect of feed size distribution and operating conditions has been investigated. Locked-cycle tests result in higher reduction ratio and higher rate of fines (100 mesh, 48 mesh and 28 mesh) generation when compared to open multi-pass tests. Data shows that scale-up trend lines stay consistent even when the circuit configuration and operating conditions are varied."

Jan 1, 2014

By Frank van der Meer, Lea Quincke

"High Pressure Grinding is applied to achieve size reduction of the particles by inter-particle breakage and to generate micro-cracks in the product particles as a contributing factor in e.g. leaching or mineral liberation. As alternative to classification, a closed circuit operation for HPGR can be established by product recycling, where a proportion of the coarser edge material and parts of the center material are split-off to be recirculated to achieve a finer final (center) discharge product for subsequent processing steps as ball mill grinding or beneficiation. As a result of the product recycling, the content of fines in the feed material increases and may affect the grinding efficiency in terms of production of fines and the generation of micro-cracks in the particles. In the scope of this paper, the effects of the proportion of fines in HPGR feed on grinding efficiency and micro-crack generation were evaluated. Grinding tests were executed with different feed size distributions, from a fines-void situation (truncated feed) to a fines-abundant situation (high product recycle). The evaluation of grinding efficiency and generation of micro-cracks was done by particle size analysis, Bond Work Index tests, impact tests on HPGR feed and products, and X-ray computed tomography of single product particles. This publication summarizes the main aspects of the outcome of these investigations."

Jan 1, 2014

By Li Maolin, Cui Rui, Wang Guanghui

"As the stirrer speed directly affects the motion of grinding media, and hence the interactions with material particles to be ground, the rotation speed of a stirred mill is well recognized as one of the most important factors affecting the grinding performance. In this work, the effect of stirrer speed on grinding performance in terms of grinding rate and grinding energy efficiency was quantitatively investigated. Batch wet grinding tests of quartz powder at different stirrer speeds were performed, using a self-made horizontal stirred mill with alumina balls as grinding media. Grinding time, operating power and the sizes of ground product were recorded to analyse the grinding performance. The test results showed that grinding processes followed the first order grinding kinetics. The grinding rate constant increased with the increasing stirrer speed. Based on the grinding kinetics, the grinding energy equation was established. The energy utilization coefficient in the energy equation can be used as an indicator of energy efficiency. The energy efficiency decreased with the increasing stirrer speed. Quantitatively, with the stirrer tip speed increasing from 4.25m/s to 9.35m/s, the grinding rate constant was improved by 441.47%, whereas the energy utilization coefficient was decreased by 39.35%. The grinding rate constant and energy utilization coefficient can be used to evaluate the grinding performance when the grinding conditions need to be adjusted. The adjustment of grinding conditons would be optimal when grinding rate get significant improved with little decrease of energy efficiency."

Jan 1, 2014