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By Raíza da Silva Juvenal, Suelen Silva Rocha, Artur Ângelo Alcântara de Assis, Jorge Luiz Valença Mariz

Um estudo de viabilidade econômica deve considerar parâmetros e incertezas inerentes a um projeto para produzir resultados econômicos consistentes, fornecendo ao investidor uma ferramenta de tomada de decisão. O presente estudo objetivou efetuar inicialmente a avaliação econômica convencional do cenário realista de uma mineração de agregados em fase de implantação localizada em Pernambuco, cujo Valor Presente Líquido (VPL) obtido foi R$ 24.006.309,20, o que representa um resultado positivo. Através da metodologia de Monte Carlo foi efetuada uma análise de risco considerando incertezas em 100.000 cenários, nos quais nove variáveis assumiram valores estocásticos dentro dos domínios definidos, produzindo assim uma distribuição estatística do VPL ao invés de um único número, sendo ainda efetuada uma análise de sensibilidade para identificar e quantificar as variáveis que mais impactam no resultado da avaliação. Por fim, os dois fatores mais influentes identificados na análise de sensibilidade inicial foram isolados e submetidos a uma nova análise de risco em outros 100.000 cenários. Foi concluído que o projeto é economicamente viável e que a probabilidade de gerar lucro aos investidores é de 99,77%, embora a probabilidade do VPL ser igual ou maior que o previsto pelo método convencional seja de 49,98%.

Oct 3, 2019

By Marco Túlio Santiago Ferreira, Nilton Carlos Torquato, Washington Pirete da Silva

In 2005, with the significant reduction of iron content in the “Quadrilátero Ferrífero” reserves, Vale began the study of alternatives for the tailings disposal in other structures, that are not tailings dams. In 2011, after bench-scale and pilot-scale tests, it was defined to implement the project "Alternative methods for tailings disposal", including the construction of experimental drainage piles to get mineral and geotechnical process parameters for future projects. The result of this study shows that it is technically possible to replace traditional tailings disposal (dams), to dry stacking, with the proportion up to 20% of ultrafine tailings in the total tailings composition, however, this study is in evolution and the scale of the project / pile is being gradually increased to guarantee a good performance for the mineral and geotechnical process.

Oct 3, 2019

By Rodrigo Martins, Mauro Trindade

I Reduction of energy consumption in air compressors by the implementation of individualized load control. Reduction of 3,5% from Jun / 18.

Oct 3, 2019

By Marília Silva Cavalcante, Filipe Brito Marinho de Barros, Suelen Silva Rocha, Jorge Luiz Valença Mariz

A seleção adequada da taxa de produção de um empreendimento mineiro tem influência direta na possibilidade de sucesso do projeto, assim como a definição do porte e quantidade de equipamentos empregados em sua operação influenciam a maximização do Valor Presente Líquido (VPL). Nesse processo, a análise de risco na variável de saída aliada à análise de sensibilidade fornece resultados mais consistentes, visto que considera os riscos e incertezas de um projeto ao longo de sua vida útil. Este estudo teve como objetivo analisar a operação em uma mina de agregados a partir da consideração de quatro diferentes conjuntos escavadeira-caminhões através do método do Valor Anual Uniforme Equivalente (VAUE), comparando-o com o método do VPL. Foram revistas as avaliações econômicas efetuadas em estudo anterior, no qual foi obtido o VPL e efetuadas as Análises de Risco e Sensibilidade em cada um dos cenários, e foi acrescida à análise a metodologia do VAUE, sendo esta também submetida à análise probabilística. Foi verificado o desempenho de cada escavadeira e seus correspondentes caminhões para diferentes taxas de produção em ambas as metodologias, permitindo concluir que, para um mesmo número de unidades de transporte e contanto que a taxa de produção requerida seja possível, quanto menor o porte do equipamento, mais econômico é o cenário. Por outro lado, quanto maior a taxa de produção do empreendimento, mais rentável este será.

Oct 3, 2019

By Hiago Antunes Amador de Oliveira, William Pratt Rogers, Aaron Young

Monitoring systems are highly critical components in the safety of tailings storage facilities (TSF). Internet of things (IoT) platforms present a unique way to improve TSF monitoring systems. Since there are so many available IoT technologies, this conference paper aims to create a focused list of IoT options for improving TSF safety. To achieve this aim, a brief qualitative review of available literature and state of the art technologies is presented in Section 2. The article further assists this aim by summarizing the benefits of IoT platforms which have been found in the literature. With respect to findings, literature suggests that while sensor technologies have existed as solutions for tailings dams for many years, IoT greatly reduces the cost of deploying, monitoring, maintaining, and gaining insight from these sensors. Additionally, IoT removes the need for manual data collection from sensors, enabling the monitoring of tailings dams from miles away and the use of new sensor technologies. Therefore, as a conclusion, this article recommends that IoT capable monitoring systems be considered for use in TSF monitoring.

Oct 3, 2019

By Emerson Sena Balbino, Emylle Alves Leitão, Gabriel Arthur Guieiro, Lucas van Melis

The deployment of autonomous haulage system causes several impacts in mining production chain, being necessary an appropriate change management policy, crucial to observe and gather all the benefits brought by the technology. The change management is also necessary to guarantee the adaptability of the organization in the long term. This paper briefly presents the technology deployed in the autonomous trucks at Vale's iron ore Brucutu mine, the changes that the operation team faces in the adoption of autonomous technology and the required training path to develop new procedures to deal with the sensitivity of the autonomous haulage system, besides the new operational dynamics from a process point of view, with safer, more consistent and more productive operations.

Oct 3, 2019

By Thamiris Auxiliadora Gonçalves Martins, Karen Espina Gomes, Amilton Barbosa Botelho Junior

The present work aims at the synthesis of nanoparticles of copper by chemical reduction in microwave oven. The solution used comes from the selective copper precipitation of the lateritic nickel leachate. The copper solution (20mL) was placed in a beaker, and 2mL of 100g/L ascorbic acid and 20mL of 20g/L sodium citrate were added in that order and at room temperature. The pH of the mixture was corrected with 1M sulfuric acid or 2M sodium hydroxide. Then the mixture was placed in a microwave oven. The effect of pH, time and microwave power were evaluated. The morphology, composition and size of the particles were verified in Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersion Spectroscopy (SEM/EDS). Results showed that the particles formed had no nanometric size. This may have occurred because the reducing action of ascorbic acid together with sodium citrate generates a very rapid reduction rate, which makes it impossible to form particles on a gauge scale. Particles synthesized at pH 4, after 4 minutes of reaction with 1000W of power presented particles with spherical morphology and only copper in the composition.

Oct 3, 2019

By Fernanda Ferrante, Wagner Reis Modesto Ribeiro, Eduardo Pena Carvalho

CSN Mineração S.A. is the second largest exporter of iron ore in Brazil and is among the five most competitive in the market. Casa de Pedra currently has an approximate production capacity of 30 million tons per year. The fleets of small trucks 6x4 and 8x4 models are responsible for the ore movement, traveling an average distance of 10 km between origin and destination. 116 trucks of this size are used in CSN Mineração for the handling of products. Every month this fleet consumes an average of 550,000 liters of fuel. The objective of the work is to do a fuel consumption analysis by truck through the embedded telemetry system. The reports generated through this system provide the specific consumption of each equipment and also the specific consumption of each Driver. As reports are generated it is possible to assess which equipment had a higher specific consumption and, in this case, the respective trucks with greater consumption are directed to the Maintenance team for analysis and action in the event that a problem is identified in the equipment. At the same time, the analysis of the drivers who had the highest specific consumption and conducted a practical and theoretical training, addressing the techniques for a safer and therefore economical direction, is carried out. In 2019, the economy of fuel consumption type S10 was 204 thousand liters, which represents 9% of all consumption foreseen for the period.

Oct 3, 2019

By Cesar Santos, Marcelo Duarte Silva, Ediron Antônio Lage, Fábio Silva dos Santos

Ceramic filtration technology, despite consuming about 90% less energy than conventional vacuum filters and producing clean water ready for reuse, faced a big challenge that put in doubt its technical and economic viability. In 2015, the production of pellet feed in this last stage of the process of the Minas-Rio Complex of Anglo American was impacted by deep fillings in the filter medium. The chemical regeneration process indicated by the filter manufacturers did not have the necessary effect. SUEZ then carried out a research work on the potential causes and indicated specialty chemicals. After an intense work of the Anglo American technical team supported by SUEZ, an efficient regeneration methodology was developed. From this reference, SUEZ received another 03 similar challenges with ceramic filters. Among them, the Herculano Mineração Dry Stacking pioneer project, which until 2017 could not process more than 20% of the tailings generated in the pellet feed concentration process. Following adaptations in the regenerative methodology as a function of the mineral characteristics facilitated by the development of a pilot backwash system, success was achieved, providing a condition for production of 3.0Mtpy without the use of tailings dam and with continued decline in the unit cost of the tailings filtration operation.

Oct 3, 2019

By Raquel Húngaro Costa, Jonathan Tenório Vinhal

The demand for natural resources has grown over the years, however, the environment offers a limited amount of these resources for exploration. Then, the investigation of new methods for recovering and reuse some compounds and elements are essential to know later tailings purposes. Zinc is used in corrosion resistance as a protective coating for several products. One of the steps for the extraction of zinc is by flotation process to obtain the concentrated ore, in which a residue is generated. The aim is to characterize this residue, allowing the choice of recovery routes for compounds and elements in future stages. The methods of analysis were Malvern, VA, Eltra and ICP-OES, besides the water content. In this study, a characterization of elemental chemical analysis was performed, in which the main elements presented were: calcium (17.4%), magnesium (10.3%) and iron (7.97%); the water content was 27% and the grain size of the material presented an average size of 50μm. With the presented characteristics the material can be used, after treatment, in the recovery of other compounds for applications in the sector of fertilizers, ceramics and steel industry.

Oct 3, 2019

By Caio Trindade Almeida, Tharcysio Oliveira Rocha Paiva

Tharcysio de Oliveira Rocha de Paiva2

Oct 3, 2019

By Flanelson Maciel Monteiro, Marcondes Mendes de Souza, Mauro Froes Meyer

This research is based on a bibliographical review of a field work that was done in the municipality of Parelhas / RN. The area explored, in turn, is known for its richness of mineral resources that are present in pegmatitic rocks. The general objective of this research is to characterize the main properties of the pegmatites and quartzite, in order to verify the heterogeneity of the elements, to raise a possible viability of extraction for economic purposes. The quartzite also presents a siliceous chemical composition. This rock is a source of bricks and silica refractories used in the steel industry and for the preparation of the blast furnace bed, ornamental rock used in different ways (rustic, carved, polished, among others). However, this research resulted in preliminary data, but it would be interesting to be more detailed in order to evaluate the economic viability of these rocks.

Oct 3, 2019

By Delciane Porfiro, Tiago de Mattos Serodre, Antônio Eduardo Clark Peres, Valdirene Gonzaga de Resende

The evaluation of the effect of the addition of carbon nanotubes (NTCs) directly to a etheramine on the flotation recovery of the quartz at pH 10.5 was carried out by means of microflotation tests in Hallimond tube. The quartz flotation was evaluated using 0.1% (w/v) etheramine solution with different percentages of carboxylic functionalized NTCs. The increase in the percentage of functionalized NTCs increased the flotation recovery to a maximum and from this it was observed a reduction of the recovery of the mineral. Pure etheramine and etheramine with the NTCs were characterized by FTIR spectroscopy and thermal analysis. FTIR spectra of both pure etheramine and etheramine with NTCs clearly showed peaks with the same wavelengths and diagnostics of the cation etheramine and acetate anion. Thermogravimetry indicated that the etheramine + NTCs-COOH mixture lost approximately the same weight percentage over a larger temperature range. In addition, the interaction of the nanotubes with the etheramine caused them to decompose at a lower temperature.

Oct 3, 2019

By Rodrigo Fina Ferreira, Jacek Kolacz, Luciana Gois, Neymayer Pereira Lima

The recent developments on the sensor detectors together with the higher capacity of the machines, due the high-speed computing recent advances, have made possible extending the application in the mining industry. The use of x-ray fluorescence, x-ray transmission and radiometric sensor based sorting can selectively remove gangue minerals in different size fractions for different minerals. This paper summarizes the potential application of SBS for an iron ore in three size fractions aiming to increase the %Fe after the removal of particles with main gangue minerals associated. Pilot plant tests were carried out with samples of iron ore in different size fractions and different content of hematite and gangues. The use of x-ray transmission sensor showed the possibility to increase the %Fe from about 63% to above 68% for particles below 80mm and 45mm, after the removal of low density particles. The presence of fines on the feed affected the performance of the SBS X-rays transmission machine, especially for the fine fraction feed. The mineralogical determination, carried out to know the association between hematite and gangue minerals, and the density of the particles on the feed, can be used to preview the quality of products of the x-transmission sorting process.

Oct 3, 2019

By José Francisco Cabello Russo, Denilson Rodrigues de Araújo, Elias Fonseca de Castro, Henrique Dias Gatti Turrer

The Minas-Rio project of the Anglo American group was designed to produce pellet feed from a low-grade itabirite. The comminution circuit has three HPGR’s and two ball mills. This type of circuit, with HPGR (open circuit) followed by ball milling (closed circuit), is called a hybrid circuit. The literature shows this hybrid circuit as being more energy efficient. The main objective of this work was to evaluate the benefits of using the HPGR in the energy consumption of the grinding and regrinding and the secondary objective was to show the impact of the press on mass recovery of desliming and flotation, in view of a possible higher generation resulting from the pressing of the material. The results obtained in this work showed that the HPGR reduced the specific energy consumption in the comminution stages existing downstream of the press, increased the recovery of the flotation and did not decrease the recovery of the desliming stage.

Oct 3, 2019

By Walter Mazon, Marcello Rodrigues Cruz, Leandro Carvalhar Maciel

Filtration is the operation of liquid solid separation commonly applied in the mining industry. The use of filtering chemical agents is a technical solution viable for filtering optimization. The present work proposed to evaluate two filtering chemical agents (surfactants) to reduce the final moisture content of iron ore concentrate from Ferrous Resources. The leaf test top feed was done with the FLOTICOR FA 7241 and FLOTICOR FA 16557 products. The foaming profile of the filtrate was also evaluated, once excessive foaming is undesired when using this kind of products. The results showed a reduction in the final moisture of the filter cake. The product FLOTICOR FA 16557 achieved the best results, reducing final cake moisture from 10.4% to 9.8% at the dosagem of 25 g/t, besides presenting a fast kinetics in the foam drainage, presenting itself as a technical alternative for filtration optimization.

Oct 3, 2019

By César Junior dos Santos, Fábio da Silva dos Santos, Robson Rodrigues Martins

Tailings disposal has been a recurring theme of research in the major mining process development centers. This is due to the great interest of companies in reducing the social and financial impacts of their environmental liabilities. Another major driving force behind the search for new alternatives is the recent cases of environmental accidents in Brazil and abroad. According to the International Commission on Large Dam (ICOLD), two major accidents per year involving dams are reported worldwide. Hence, we realize that the analysis of the topic as well as the search for solutions becomes a challenge for both entrepreneurs and research institutions. In this work, a case study of the Herculano Mining will be carried out, working in the extraction and processing of iron ore. The main stages of the study are: technological characterization of tailings from the beneficiation process, analysis of filtration processes of this material for disposal in piles, bench tests and evaluation of the performance of the industrial facilities of the company in question. Herculano has an installed ceramic filtration equipment that faces operational difficulties in certain types of ore. At first, all the possibilities of adjusting this process will be analyzed so that it can filter the necessary mass of waste, acting in the rheology of the pulp (sedimentation, flocculation), regeneration of the ceramic plates and adjustments of the machine (filter), in order to obtain the best condition.

Oct 3, 2019

By Flanelson Maciel Monteiro, Yago Lutz Castro Pinto, Marcondes Mendes de Souza, Mauro Froes Meyer

This article is based on a bibliographical review of a field work that was done in the Salina São Camilo in the region of Mossoró - RN. The general objective of this research is to present the main exploratory and beneficiation aspects of salt production. Among the aspects of salt is the properties of salt, history and mining, besides the aspects of environment and work safety. However, this research resulted in preliminary data, but it would be interesting to be more thorough so that the extraction of salt in the academic world is disclosed

Oct 3, 2019

By Luiz Peixoto, Andrea Falcon

There are a few ways to impact the capacity of a reciprocating compressor, by altering suction and discharge pressure and recirculation. By reducing the pressure drop in the section before the compressor it is possible to provide a higher suction pressure and subsequently achieve a higher compressor flow rate. The increase in the suction pressure while maintaining the discharge pressure reduced the demanded compressor Head. When considering oxygen compressors it is necessary to cautiously evaluate the safety norms and parameters due to the risk of explosions and fires due to high oxygen velocity.

Oct 3, 2019

By Klaydison Silva, Maurício Curi Segato, Elves Matiolo, Neymayer Pereira Lima

Flotation is the main concentration process, has been applied with sucess for the removal of quartz on the iron ore industry aiming high quality concentrates. limiting the top size close to 0,300mm and the removal of slimes are fundamental for the efficiency of reverse flotation of quartz. The high consumption of reagents, leading to insufficient particle coverage, and increased foam stability, leading to the difficulty of removal of quartz particles, are the main deleterious effects of the presence of slimes. Recent characterization studies, together with the development of new collector of linear chain, allowed the obtaining of concentrate with SiO2 contents close to 3% with 94% of metallurgical recovery, based on pilot tests carried out on a sample flotation column of the Quadrilátero Ferrífero.

Oct 3, 2019