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By L. Rintala

The design of a hydrometallurgical process starts with the analysis of the raw materials to be treated, for example mineralogy, chemistry, deposit size are analysed. Based on this information suitable unit processes for pre-treatment, leaching, solution purification and product recovery are selected. Typically, process design for the new ore deposit relies on laboratory tests such as pre-treatment and leaching experiments. The experimental work is the most time consuming and expensive part of the process design. Reducing the number of experiments would shorten the time of designing a new flowsheet or development of new process technology. A large amount of information is available about the hydrometallurgical experiments and the amount is increasing continuously. For example, word search using ?hydrometallurgy? from Scopus database results in over 4 000 publications with the word in title, abstract or keywords. This number consists of 2 500 articles, 900 conference papers, and 90 reviews since 1972. The number of hydrometallurgical publications per year has increased from 13 in 1972 to 150-200 in the last few years. The objective of this study was to analyze how detailed data of experiments about the gold extraction is published and how that data could be exploited more effectively when designing hydrometallurgical processing for new ore. The leading idea is that similar ores should have the similar response in leaching. If the published information was used more efficiently, the amount of experiments would be reduced. More than 200 cases of experimental data of gold leaching have been analyzed for this study. There are over 30 factors that could be used in comparison when selecting process alternatives, but challenging fact is that not all these factors are documented in all publications. Results show that the usefulness of the published data in the development of hydrometallurgical flow sheet for gold using decision-support tools is not that straightforward. The quality of the published information about gold extraction varied between the publications and the descriptions of the raw materials, experimental arrangements and results were often missing details. Methods to normalize the data for description of the cases and a system to describe different features unambiguously are needed. Keywords: refractory gold, host mineral, leaching, data analysis, case-based reasoning

Sep 1, 2012

By Yu. E. Emelyanov, A. V. Bogorodsky, R. N. Nabiulin, S. V. Balikov

"The paper describes the results of the study of gold-copper flotation concentrate atmospheric oxidation at different sizes of material, varying oxidation time, with air or oxygen blow. The study showed the low rate of sulphide oxidation during oxidation of flotation concentrate at a feed size (P98 -74 µm). The coppery recovery into solution was 48%; the recovery of gold by subsequent cyanidation reached 86%. Preliminary flotation concentrate grinding to P98 -20 µm provided oxidation of 90% of copper minerals, 80% of arsenopyrite and 15% of pyrite. The gold recovery by atmospheric oxidation of a fine-ground flotation concentrate increased by 59%, from 36% to 95%, the NaCN consumption reduced by 21 kg/t, from 30 to 9 kg/t. INTRODUCTION Processing of sulphide gold-copper ores and concentrates using conventional cyanidation technology results in higher reagent consumption and lower gold recovery. Destruction of sulphide minerals and extraction of copper from a processed product prior to cyanidation is essential for improving efficiency of precious metals recovery and reducing main reagents consumption. Atmospheric oxidation (AO) is one of the most promising hydrometallurgical methods of refractory gold-copper concentrates processing, along with biooxidation and pressure oxidation. The nature of this approach lies in oxidation of sulphides at 90-95°C, in acidic or alkaline conditions, with bubbling of oxygen or air, after preliminary ultrafine grinding (1-4). The following reactions of sulphide oxidation occur during atmospheric oxidation of a gold-copper flotation concentrate. Pyrite is oxidized with the formation of ferric sulphate (1) and elemental sulphur at low temperatures (2), whereas some portion of elemental sulphur reacts to form sulphuric acid: FeS2+3,75O2+0,5H2O=0,5Fe2(SO4)3+0,5H2SO4; ?G=-1144,02 kJ/mol (1)"

Jan 1, 2018

By D. Hatfield, G. de Jager

"The rapid developments in computer vision and computational resources are creating new possibilities for the use of machine vision systems for industrial control. A number of commercial image analysis systems exist, and research into improved measurements of froth performance is ongoing. An integral part of the implementation of these systems is the validation of the relationship between image analysis measurements and flotation cell performance. This paper discusses the factors affecting concentrate flow and presents the results obtained from one such system with respect to its ability to estimate the flow of concentrate from a flotation cell.The relationship between froth flow speed and the rate of recovery of concentrate from a flotation cell was investigated on two industrial operations, both processing PGM (Platinum Group Metal) bearing ores. Results are presented that show a relationship between froth flow speed and concentrate yield."

Jan 1, 2003

By C. Y. Jia

Adsorption of Thiooxidans ferrooxidans and Mycobacterium Phlei on the surface of pyrite and galena was studied. From the experimental results, it was observed that Mycobacterium Phlei adsorbed preferentially on pyrite than on galena at neutral and alkaline pH values, while Thiooxidans ferrooxidans is not at all pH range, and the scanning electron microscopy photograph also indicated that. FTIR and XPS of two strains of bacteria indicated that there are much functional groups on surface of them, such as O?H, N?H, C-O, C?N, C?O etc, but S-O group occurred on Thioox-idans ferrooxidans cell surface and the P-O group appeared on Mycobacterium Phlei cell surface, and the content of C?O?H and C?O?C groups on Mycobacterium Phlei cell surface is higher than that on Thiooxidans ferrooxidans cell surface, this also been known from UVS investigation. The affinity of these groups to metal ions on sulfide minerals is able to explain the selective adsorption.

Jan 1, 2014

By A. A. Lavrinenko

There are discussed the possibilities of using of flotation tailings of platinum-copper-nickel sulfide ores of the Norilsk region for the preparation of backfill mixture instead of a specially produced rock and binder materials to reduce the cost of stowing operations and impact on the environment. It is shown that due to the presence in the tailings of flotation up to 10% of sulfide sulphur, which reduces the strength of the fill materials, and more than 1 g/t PGM it is necessary the preliminary extraction of the sulfides in the product for further processing that give an opportunity to reduce the losses of valuable components. It is shown that by the flotation of the current tailings it is possible to extract 91% of sulfide sulphur, 60% of palladium and 30% platinum in 17% sulfide concentrate containing 2.1 g/t palladium, and to reduce the sulphur content in the tailings up to 0.7%. Due to the easy oxidation of pyrrhotite, there is recommended fractional delivery of the collector with a total consumption 200 g/t. There are discussed results of the flotation study with an additional collector of PGM (sodium diizobutyditiophosfinate), which one show the possibility to increase extraction of platinum on 45%, as well as extraction of sulphur and palladium. For the flotation of sulfides and PGM from the current tailings there is recommended a combination of collectors for primary flotation and only butyl xanthate using in control operations. The possibility of using sludge fraction of the current tailings as a component for the preparation of the combined cementing materials after exposure of sulfides is analyzed. It is shown that the efficiency of the flotation of sulfides from this fraction can be enhanced using selective flocculants. There are discussed the advantages of implementation of completely hydrophobic butadiene-styrene copolymer in comparison with partially hydrophobic polymers. There is discussed an efficiency of the mechanochemical treatment of old tailings in turbo mill and sulphuric acid to remove oxide films from the surface of pyrrhotite before its flotation. Due to the pretreatment operation there is achieved increasing of sulphur extraction and after the introduction to the flotation circuit three control operations there is produced the fill material with sulphur content 2.5%. Keywords: tailings, copper-nickel ore, pyrrhotite, butyl xanthate, sodium diisobutyl dithiophosphinate, selective flocculation, butadiene-styrene copolymer, mechanochemical treatment

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 O. A. Bascur

It is difficult to analyse the economics without an integrated view of mine transactions, stockpile inventories, process flows and assays. The lack of integration of mining and metallurgical information with sufficient detail to analyse and act is a problem. However, to take action requires real time information from manufacturing assets, corrected for gross errors from trucks, shovels, conveyors, faulty sensors, bad instrument calibration. Validation methods use process models to identify inconsistent information in the case of corrupt actionable information. This paper presents new strategies that transform the data into business information for continuous improvement and optimization. This technical presentation will review recent implementations enabling large metallurgical complexes to improve their data quality for overall production and energy management. A competence center emerges as an enabler for implementing operational intelligence. The evolution of Web services to troubleshoot plant information and to collaborate at the enterprise level is presented.

Jan 1, 2014

Compressive crushing is applied in crushing plants used in mineral, mining, and aggregate in-dustry for fragmentation of rock materials. From a global perspective, the total volume of crushed rock is massive and corresponds to several billion tons. All societies have to fulfil a daily need of rock material products and its derivatives such as metals and minerals. The business for metals and minerals is global while the aggregates production is mainly a local industry. This paper presents a broader overview of optimisation with respect to product yield, use of natural resources and energy consumption. High level plant optimisation of compressive crushing plants is covered as well as real-time optimisation and optimisation of single production units. Each of three optimisation areas are presented and a discussion around how these three areas will be able to communicate with each other is given. Several models, e.g. process performance behav-iour with respect to wear, as well as fitness functions can be common for all three areas. Well-defined and representative fitness functions are of the utmost importance in order to assure that the optimisation results reflect the production targets. It is concluded that great benefits can be achieved by linking together different areas of optimisa-tion. The future for compressing crushing lies, without a doubt, in tailored processes both with re-spect to machines optimised for each customer, plant parameters and operation routines as well as an on-line adjustment, which takes into account current information and control possibilities.

Jan 1, 2014

By R. C. Dunne

A review of the current ?state of the art? of refractory gold treatment will be provided. This will include a global perspective of refractory processes past and present and the location of currently operating plants. Some discussion on the challenges that face the refractory gold industry will also be provided. Keywords: refractory gold treatment, flotation, roasting, pressure oxidation, bacterial oxidation, preg-robbing gold ores, fine grinding.

Sep 1, 2012

By A. Kogelbauer, A. Stadtschnitzer, A. Boehm, F. Schillab

"The paper covers the design and implementation of an industrial dense medium cyclone plant for carbonaceous iron ore, the proving of efficiency as well as the development of a predictive model for plant control. The VA Erzberg GmbH mines about 12 Mio.t of carbonaceous rock ore at the “Steirische Erzberg”. Due to increased demand of the Austrian steel plants, the production of ore concentrate was raised by 30 % up to 3.0 Mio t/a during the last 5 years. One of the projects to realize the increase in capacity at improved concentrate quality was the implementation of a dense medium cyclone plant for the fine size fraction – 8 +1 mm replacing the former dry permanent magnetic drum separators. By physical separation the siderite variety “spateisenstein” (42% Fe) of a density of 3,8 g/cm³ is separated from ankerite (10 – 17% Fe), the second iron bearing carbonate with a density of 3,2 g/cm³, dolomite, calcite and silicate bearing schists. The feasibility of the process was proven by the test results obtained from a test rig, that was constructed and operated in close cooperation between the Chair of Mineral Processing, Montanuniversitaet Leoben and VA Erzberg GmbH. The density separation surpassed the efficiency of magnetic separation clearly shown by •- values. The plant performance tests (capacity 120 t/h) verify the cut densities defined by Tromp T50 -values and the assigned efficiency found in the pilot tests at varied settings of media density, pressure drop, cone angle and apex diameter. The test rig as well as the final process will be presented. In order to create a tool to predict the performance of the DMS in the centrifugal field at various settings for varying feed composition the experimental results from size and density testing are analyzed in a modified way to obtain physically justified, smooth approximations for the performance curves. Models developed on coal washing plants are checked for their validity at increased densities."

Jan 1, 2018

By L. Y. Wang

In order to produce the iron and steel products with high quality and decrease the output of steel tailings, the quality of molten iron is a critical factor for iron and steel companies, especially the content of sulfidic in molten iron. Hot metal pre-treatment, an important and effective method to desulphur, is widely used in steel production. Millions of tons of slag from desulphurization and slag skimming are produced each year in China, and many more times this amount is stored in slag dams because of the lack of effective means to deal with it. In order to achieve the goal of sustain-able development, recycling these slag becomes necessary. The main objective of this paper is to study the composition characteristics of slag that from desulphurization and slag skimming. The sample was obtained from Anshan Iron and Steel Group Corporation, processed by hot metal pre-treatment. In this study, the chemical components and the mineral compositions of sample were tested. The results of chemical components and iron chemistry phase analysis showed that the iron and sulphide content in this sample were high, and the iron products existed mainly in the form of magnetite, metallic iron, ferrosilite. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) results indicated that the sample included metallic iron, ferrate, wustite, metasilicate, aluminate, aluminosilicate, white lime and soon. Grading magnetic separation test work showed that magnetic separation was an effective method to recovery iron products and decrease the sulphide content in concentrate, and the tailing could be used as the raw material or padding in cement production.

Jan 1, 2014

By F. H. Wang

The Yinmao Lead-Zinc Mine Co. Ltd. has got 50 years of mining history. In recent years, the manganese grade in the flotation tailings has been continuously increasing. In order to make fuller use of the existing resources, as well as to increase the company?s economic efficiency, our company adopted the technique ?magnetic separation? and ?iron removal? to effectively recycle the manganese concentrate resources.

Jan 1, 2014

By Rodrigo Ladrón, Gonzalo Rund, Gonzalo Montes-Atenas

Modelling ore comminution processes have been a highly fruitful scientific topic. The models have been proved to be largely dependent on the selected comminution technology. Among them, semiautogenous (SAG) mill technology has been widespread implemented in plants but no complete understanding of the mechanisms involved in the process is available. Tracing back in history, SAG models considered only some granulometric cut sizes such as the t10 and attempted to relate these parameters with the energy involved in the impact between particles. Other models evolved towards incorporating physical properties of the material being ground and the mill operating conditions. These material properties have assisted to obtain a more comprehensive description of the breakage mechanisms; nevertheless, the gathering of all known parameters still have not delivered a model able to describe the process. This may be a result of emergent properties or phenomena originated from interactions inside the process which are hard to predict turning the size reduction operation into a complex system. Cellular automata provide one answer to describe complex systems by following simple rules. The aim of this research work is to establish the preliminary rules of thumbs enabling the implementation of cellular automata able to predict the particle size distribution at the exit of a SAG mill. The methodology involved developing a simple 2D model of a ROM sample. Plant data from two mine sites were correctly described by a set of three rules: two rules describing the particle reduction and one rule associated with material transport across the mill. Further analysis related with expanding this model to 3D and its impact on the liberation of valuable material is also discussed.

Jan 1, 2014

By Ernesto de la Torre, Karla Velín, Alicia Guevara

"The following study shows the improvement and simulation of a gold recovery plant of 24 t/day of capacity by gravity concentration, flotation and leaching. The ore processed had grades of 6 g/t Au, 15 g/t Ag, and 0.69 %Cu with the mineralogy consisting of 2 %chalcopyrite, 12 %pyrrhotite, 7 %plagioclase and 50 %quartz. The recovery process starts with crushing the ore followed by grinding it further in a ball mill. The ground ore is then concentrated in a Falcon centrifugal concentrator with concentrate being processed by amalgamation process. Gravity tails are sent to a flotation circuit where the copper minerals and some gold are concentrated. Lastly, the flotation tailings undergo cyanidation for gold recovery. Currently, the overall recoveries are 82.8 %Au, 49.6 %Ag and 99.1 % Cu. The optimization was developed in the laboratory using a Wilfley table by gravity concentration. Flotation tests in the laboratory were performed using potassium amyl xanthate and pine oil. Lastly, cyanidation was then performed on the flotation tailings. The results showed the optimum concentration of sodium cyanide in cyanidation is 2 g/L, which produced an increase in gold recovery from 30% to 44%. The reduction of diameter particle from 132 to 80 µm also produces an incremental recovery of gold and silver from 11% to 21% Au and 0.4 to 3% Ag in gravity concentration. Likewise in the cyanidation the recovery of gold and silver has shown a rise from 44 to 62% and 8 to 32% for Au and Ag respectively. However, the flotation method the gold recovery is reduced from 68 to 30% Au by reducing the particle size. Computer simulations using the programs, Moly-Cop and ModSim were performed to determine optimum parameters for the recovery of precious metals at the gold recovery plant."

Jan 1, 2014

By A. Shandilya

ACC ECOSAND is finely powdered crystalline silica, which can replace natural sand usage in concrete and plasters. ACC ECOSAND ensures a comparatively denser concrete than those made only with natural sand and / or quarry fines / Manufactured Sand (Artificial Sand). Moreover, there is a significant gain in compressive strength (10-15 %) & durability in concretes (Reduced chloride conductivity leads to increased durability). ECOSAND is a by-product of froth flotation of limestone. At ACC Madukkarai cement works, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, full-fledged mineral beneficiation process is adopted to enhance the usage of flotation reject in concrete and plasters. Optimum level for usage of ECO-SAND is 50%. With 50% usage of natural sand+50% ECO-SAND in concrete mix, 1 day, 3 day, 7 day & 28 day compressive strength is increased by 30.1 %, 22.6 %, 15.1 % & 11.0 % respectively and with moderate chloride permeability as compare to 100% Natural Sand. Keywords: froth flotation process, beneficiation studies, Denver cell, ECOSAND, siliceous material, durability & compressive strength, RCPT

Sep 1, 2012

By Pejman Oghazi

During the last decade the output of mining companies has increased rapidly. The key driver is the increase in demand for raw materials in the developing world, and thus this demand has driven up ore prices. From the time when the Raw material group (year 2000) started to introduced their index, it was set to 100 points. Today, year 2011, the index is over 400, which means that ore prices have quadrupled since then. Mine companies have to go deeper in the mines to access the ore bodies to increase the mine capacity and to be able to respond to the market. By going deeper in the mine, there will be new challenges that have to be considered. One of these challenges is how to handle the mine water that is produced in the mine. The water has to be moved to the surface in order to keep the mine from flooding, and this causes more challenges. One solution is to pump the mine water up to the surface without treatment; however, this causes considerable pump wear and the water will still require treatment on the mine?s surface. Another solution is to treat this water in the mine before pumping it to the surface. Metso Minerals has a system solution to treat the mine water, by separating the solids from the mine water. This system reduces the erosion in the pumps and will save many maintenance hours in the long term. One other option is to use the treated water in a closed circuit and reuse it in the process. This system can be divided into three steps: Firstly, a spiral dewaterer to remove the coarse solid particles. For the next step, lamella thickener is used to remove most of the solids, and lastly tube press to handle the sludge from the underflow lamella thickeners. Keywords: mine water, mineral processing, dewatering, separating

Sep 1, 2012

By D. Tao

A novel rotary triboelectrostatic separator has been developed and patented recently at the University of Kentucky with unique features, including a high efficiency rotary charger, charger electrification, laminar air flow, etc. A parametric study has been performed with a coal combustion fly ash sample to investigate the effects of major operating parameters on the process performance. Most significant operating variables and optimum conditions were identified. Separation tests performed with four fly ash samples indicated that the rotary triboelectrostatic separator showed effective fly ash separation.

Jan 1, 2014

By N. I. Um

The coal bottom ash generated from coal-fired power plant accounted for approximately 5 mil-lion tons in Korea. Almost all of coal bottom ash was treated as reclamation of the landfill because of the content of unburned carbon. For recycling of coal bottom ash, effective removal of that is required. So, in this study, the removal of unburned carbon by flotation was studied with respect to adsorption ability in surface of a bubble in order to consider its application to recycle the coal bottom ash. The sample A, B and C were that the coal bottom ash contained 2.73%, 7.01% and 10.49% of the unburned carbon (UC) respectively. The column flotation was carried out for each time as the artificial injection of air at 10.0L/min flow rate and the reagents of 500g/ton kerosene and 80g/ton MIBC were used. The samples per water of 1.3 liters were from 0.5% to 4% (w/w.%). In the result of this study, the kinetic curves of unburned carbon adsorption from injected air bubbles were in-creased rapidly as equilibrium was approached; only 5 sec was needed from the sample A and B and 10 sec was from sample C. And the equilibrium isotherms of unburned carbon adsorbed by the infected air bubble from the sample B and C could appear the BET adsorption isotherm; MT = KMEEO/(EO-E)[EO+(K-1)E](K: adsorption affinity), but not the sample A that was not enough to express the adsorption curve.

Jan 1, 2014

By Song Z. Guo

Calcite and magnesite are both carbonate minerals and their crystals belong to trigonal system. Flotation tests were carried out to investigate the flotation behaviors of calcite and magnesite. The test results show that the floatability of calcite and magnesite under different grinding environment had obvious differences. The floatability of calcite using sodium oleate as collector after dry grinding is better than wet grinding, but the floatability of magnesite after wet grinding is better than dry grinding. The XPS surface elements test and zeta potential measurement show that, wet and dry grinding process makes the distribution difference of surface anion and metal cation, then influence the floatability of the two carbonate minerals using sodium oleate as collector. Difference of the carbonate crystal structure and solubility properties was also investigated. Research shows that crystal structure difference of calcite and magnesite causes the difference of solubility, which can influence the flotation behaviors under different grinding environment. Keywords: carbonate mineral, crystal structure, solubility properties, flotation, surface character

Sep 1, 2012

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

"The analysis on influencing factors of hydraulic conditions in fine hematite flocculation, such as stirring speed, stirring time and axial distance of particle size and fractal dimension of floc was investigated. Furthermore, response surface methodology(RSM) has been applied according to the Box-Benhnken center-united experimental design principle to optimize parameters of hydraulic conditions as a response index to indicate the fractal dimension of floc. The results show that when the agitation speed is 900r/min, the axial distance is 2.0cm, and the stirring time is 3.0min, the particle size reaches the maximum value of 35.44µm and the fractal dimension is 1.6594. The interaction between the axial distance and the stirring speed is highly significant, but the interaction with the stirring time is not obvious. The experimental data and model predications match well, which indicates that the established model has high accuracy and practicability. INTRODUCTION With the exhaustion of iron ore resources that are easy to be mined and the vigorous demand for iron and steel, the exploitation and utilization of fine-grained embedded iron ore resources have drawn attention from the industry and the government [1~2]. Flocculation flotation is one of the effective methods for separation and recovery of fine granular minerals. In 1975, the method was first applied and succeeded in Tilden Concentrator, USA. Flocculation and desliming became the key technology of the Tilden to raise its annual treatment capacity from 4 million tons to 8 million tons at that time [3 ~ 4]. In 2008, the selective flocculation and desliming-reverse flotation technology was successfully used to treat 2.8 million tons of Qidong iron ore. Under the conditions of 28.36% raw iron grade and 98% grinding fineness -0.038 mm, the ideal index of 62.5% iron concentrate grade and 68% recovery was obtained [5]. Dr Kitchenner of the Royal College of Mining and the Ore Processing Research Group of Wallenstein Laboratory first proposed the use of flocculation to separate minerals. After that, many scholars conducted a great deal of theoretical and practical researches, but mostly they focused on chemical theories, mathematical models and selectivity differences in the flocculation process, while the research on the influence of the pulp flow state on the separation effect in the flocculation process started later [6~9]. The results show that the motion of the agitated flow field has a significant influence on the formation of flocs. The fluid morphology will change with the change of hydraulic conditions. The change of fluid morphology will not only affect the movement behavior of particles, but also change the action of chemical agents on the surface of mineral particles[10~12]."

Jan 1, 2018