A global sensitivity analysis for multiple products in a mineral processing flowsheet

"In mineral processing, the recovery and/or concentration of the value components cannot occur in one operational stage, therefore requiring the use of separation circuits based on several flotation stages. The components to be separated are typically distributed at different concentrations and different particle sizes, resulting in different levels of recovery. Typically, more than one value component must be selectively removed by exploiting the differences in the components’ floatability at different pH values, pulp potential and particle size. Several methods for the design of these circuits are available in the literature, but comparatively few studies present circuit analysis tools or address the design of a multiple-product flotation circuit. In this study, global sensitivity analysis was used to analyze a flotation circuit with several products, such as copper, lead and zinc. This analysis was based on the Eureka mine concentrator plant. The analysis was performed for each of the sections of the circuit as an overall evaluation of the circuit. The Sobol’ method and the correlation method were used to evaluate the Eureka mine concentrator plant using the SimLab 2.2 software."