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By Chen Jianhua, Shen Zhenchang, Zhang Ming, Chen Feifei

"With flotation cells scale-up, the performance of flotation cells is increasingly variated for short-coming and dead zones existing. The residence time distribution which shows the movement of tracers can assess the unexpected flows such as short circuit and dead zone in a flotation cell. In this paper, the residence time distribution of pilot flotation cell is investigated with CFD simulation. Based on the theoretical model, the short-coming probability and dead zone probability are quantitative. The ideal average residence time is similar with the actual average residence time. The mixing effect of the flotation cell approaches the ideal continuous stirred tank reactor. The operating parameters such as speed and feed velocity have complicated influence on residence time distribution. The research would be helpful to understanding flow in flotation cell and improving performances of flotation cell.INTRODUCTION Froth flotation is a method which purifies minerals according to difference of physical and chemical surface characters of different mineral particles (Shen, Z., Chen J, 2012). Flotation cell is a key equipment for froth flotation method. The flotation cell performances have great influences on flotation index.It is difficult to evaluate flotation cell how to improve flotation procedure to complexity. The main flotation cell performances are aeration volume, air dispersion, solid suspension and residence time distribution, etc (Shen, Z., Lu, S., 2008). Residence time distribution is an important fluid hydrodynamics which could reveal the flow of pulp, mixing of particles and air bubbles. In the flotation cell, the ideal average residence time of pulp could obtain easily. But the fluid differential units would be different flow paths. The residence time of the fluid differential units is variation and would be longer or less than the average residence time. The residence time distribution would reveal the mixing effect and predict the not ideal flow in the flotation cell such as shorting cutting, dead zone, etc. As we know, the shorting cutting and dead zone would be decreased the real flotation time and it is disadvantage to better flotation effect, especially for large flotation cell. It is impossible to eliminate the not ideal flow totally. It is very important to reveal and decrease the shorting cutting and dead zone probability in the flotation cell."

Jan 1, 2018

By Janne Kauppi, Kaj Jansson, Piia Suvio, Saara Hagnäs

"Historically the focus at the mineral processing sites has been to improve the production operations, while little focus has been set on how factors, such as the quality of water used in the process affects the metal recovery. Simultaneously increasing public pressure and water scarcity is driving the mining industry to recycle more water back to the process, which in turn leads to accumulation of impurities within the recycled water. This paper presents a concept for a systematic approach on targeting the impurities that have a negative effect on the metal recovery at the flotation circuit by using a novel solution called Process Water Recycling Plant (PWRP). These plants are designed with specific ore type in mind. PWRP produces cost-effectively process water to different target qualities, especially for flotation purposes enabling higher and more stable flotation recovery. It consists of pre-designed and standard water treatment units for a wide range of volumes. The application-specific configuration of units is governed by the water quality requirements, and can be designed according to specific customer needs. Testing has been carried out in order to investigate, which recycling water impurities affect the different ore types and how the metal recovery in flotation is affected as a consequence of the poor-quality water. The results indicate that every ore type is impacted differently and without a good understanding on how the water quality impacts the process performance, adverse effects on the flotation recovery can occur.INTRODUCTION With a focus on where water is used within the mineral processing, it has become evident that even though water is used in several different processes, majority of the water losses within the site occur at the tailings processing and the tailings storage facility. New tailings management technologies that can increase the recovery of water are actively being developed, but the key to improving the efficiency of water use and reducing the operational risks lies in closing the water loops and increasing the slurry density in the tailings processing. With this shift from conventional tailings technologies towards paste and dry stacking, water efficiency is vastly improved, but it might in turn lead to process water challenges with impurities, reagents and fines being recycled and accumulated within the production processes."

Jan 1, 2018

By Y. C. Liu

Ningxiang-type iron deposit is a most important sedimentary oolitic hematite deposit in China. Its? detected ore reserves are 3.72 billion tons, which is 73.5% of all detected reserves, and there are about 10 billion tons of prognostic resources. It is considered as the ?poor mine? for a long time be-cause of its difficult prooerty. But based on the ore characteristics of different deposits, the technological characteristics of ore are different with great diversity in ore baring horizon, distribution range, deposit scale, ore petrology, ore mineral assemblage and iron content. Through the study of deposit features and technological mineralogy of different Ningxiang-type of iron deposits in China, and based on industrial types and natural types of ore deposits, we divide different technological types according the technological features of the ore such as mineral composition, particle size, dissemination, occurrence of useful elements and harmful elements, the main physical and chemical properties of mineral and geological conditions of deposits, etc, moreover, propose the different utilization, mineral processing technologies and product schemes for the different types of ore.

Jan 1, 2014

By X. Q. Wu

Magnetization in slurry (MIS) of weakly magnetic minerals by iron ions was investigated. The magnetic seeds (strongly magnetic particles) were synthesized by ferruginous chlorides directly in slurry instead of previous preparations of magnetic seeds by finely grinding mineral magnetite or specially synthesizing them separately in an aqueous solution. In this way, the growth of the seeds and their adsorption on the minerals simultaneously take place in the same slurry. That after MIS the recovery of weakly magnetic mineral limonite in a magnetic separator increased means the formation and adsorption of magnetic seeds on the surface of iron mineral limonite. The magnetization effect was evaluated by limonite recovery at a magnetic strength of 3.500 Gs in a magnetic separator. Mineral limonite was properly magnetized in the following slurry condition: molar ratio of Fe3+ to Fe2+1:3, slurry temperature of 45 °C and pH 10.5. The selectivity of the magnetization between minerals limonite and quartz was improved by adding surfactant sodium oleate.

Jan 1, 2014

By T. Onnela

Metso Mining and Construction Technology is one of the world leading suppliers of equipment and knowhow for aggregate and mining industry. The processing capacity, ease of use, and reliability are featuring Metso?s state-of-the-art cone crushers. Crushing is a complicated process affected by numerous parameters. The optimized crusher kinematics is one of the key factors for high performance. To fine tune the crusher kinematics and crushing chambers one needs to know how different parameters affect. The main cone crusher parameters are head angle and diameter, gyration point, shaft speed, eccentricity, stroke length, and inclination and design of crushing cavity. Selecting the correct combination of these parameters is a multi task optimization challenge. In practical life there are more factors to achieve satisfactory performance, like crushing chamber wear and profile management keeping the performance constant over the whole wear life, control of crusher frame loads, ability to handle disturbances in feed material etc. The extensive research work has lead to a solution that enables the highest possible material density in the crushing chamber. This design provides maximum reduction of processed material and thus increased share of 0/10 mm product. High density in the cavity offers further benefits, such as high throughput capacity, less material contact with wear parts and even load on crusher frame and bearings. The challenge that an equipment supplier involved with high density crushing is how to design a robust cone crusher, which is able to cope with the high crushing forces due to high resistance from the crushed material against the gyration movement. Metso has launched a new series of cone crushers HP3, HP4 and HP5 that are all able to work in high density crushing applications The test results and evidence from over 300 installations clearly prove the effectiveness and importance of high density crushing. Keywords: cone crusher, crushing chamber, crusher kinematics

Sep 1, 2012

By M. Lak, M. Asghari, M. Saghaeian, R. Hejazi, A. Haratian

"Magnetic separation techniques are used extensively in mineral processing operations. Magnetic separators are robust and relatively easy to operate. As the ore get hard and low grade, fine grinding must be required mostly to allow for a high degree of mineral liberation. These processes encounter the magnetic separation process difficulty due to a significant change in the separation behavior of particles. This study investigates the effectiveness of a novel proven wet magnetic separator for the beneficiation of Lebedinsky (Russia) iron ore achieved through developing pole arrangement and tank design. Basis on the results of multiphasic simulation of a medium intensity magnetic separator (MIMS) and dense media tank using Magnetic Design Software, a new model of the MIMS separator was developed. The main of the new MIMS separator was focused on improving separation and the decreasing the number of separators in cobber stage of the plant. The new MIMS separator was tested into a pilot plant on the received samples from Lebedinsky iron ore plant. In addition to the basis on the results of the modeling, promising results of test work and previous experiences, it was claimed the unit capacity of new separator is 33.33% more than the existing separator that could decrease the number of separators. In addition, the significant energy saving in the same operational condition could be obtained without any important adverse effect on the final concentrate quality.INTRODUCTION Magnetic separation is a long-established method for the purification and removal of substances from fluids (Augusto et al., 1999; Buck et al., 2015; Hoffmann et al., 2002; Lauda et al., 2016; Lindner et al., 2010; Podoynitsyn et al., 2016; Rashidi et al., 2016), mainly in mining processing industries ranging from steel production to coal desulfurization as commercial technology (Andres, 1994; Augusto, 2002; Svoboda, 1987). High gradient magnetic separation as an effective method for recovering of weak and fine magnetic particles separation has undergone dramatic developments, and has also achieved extensive application during this time (Svoboda and Jujita, 1987). Magnetic separation operations can be categorized into high intensity as electrical (up to 20,000 gauss), Medium intensity (2000-5000 gauss) and low intensity (less than 2000 gauss) techniques. Magnetic separators offer a simple, clean and economic way to sort magnetizable ores and minerals. After pulverization, the material is run through an inhomogeneous magnetic field, where particles of different susceptibility experience different magnetic forces. The force increases with susceptibility, magnetic field and field gradient (Jongst et al., 1984).In magnetic separation, the difference in the susceptibilities of the various particulate materials is used to separate the material flow into two or more products (Wasmuth and Unkelbach, 1991). The magnetic force acting on a particle can be calculated using the following equation:"

Jan 1, 2018

By Y. S. Sun, P. Gao, Y. F. Li, J. W. Yu

"Oolitic hematite ore is one of the most refractory iron ores in the world. It is not feasible to separate iron minerals from raw ore by conventional mineral processing methods. In recent years, a new technology called coal-based reduction followed by magnetic separation has been employed to produce metallic iron powder from oolitic hematite ore effectively. In order to find the nucleation mechanism, a thermodynamic analysis of the carbothermic reduction of oolitic hematite ore was conducted by the HSC 6.0 thermochemical software. The phase transition and microstructure changes during the coal-based reduction were also investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The results showed that the iron oxides in the oolitic ore were reduced to metallic iron following the route of Fe2O3–Fe3O4–FeO–Fe in reduction process. The reduction reactions preferentially occur in the high activity regions to form a higher concentration of Fe elements, and then more supersaturated Fe separated out to form new phase nuclei. Under the action of homo-aggregation and principle of minimum free energy, the iron cores continuously absorbed migratory Fe around and grew into quasi-spherical iron particles embedded in slag phase. INTRODUCTION With the rapid increase of steel industry, premium grade iron ore in China has been gradually exhausted, and its supply has become bottleneck for the development of iron and steel industry (Guo et al., 2015). Therefore, it is urgent to exploit the refractory iron ores, such as oolitic hematite ore. Oolitic hematite ore is widely distributes in France, Germany, America, Canada, Pakistan, China, and among other countries (Maynard and Van Houten, 2004; Li et al., 2011). In China, the explored reserve of oolitic hematite ore is 3.72 billion tons, which accounts for approximately 1/9 of total iron ore resources of China (Gao et al, 2016). Oolitic hematite ore possesses complex composition,"

Jan 1, 2018

By C. Y. Wang

Based on Slurry Electrolysis, and combined with the problems of extraction antimony, lead and their separation from complicated antimony-lead concentrate, a series of tests have been done in this paper. Using Slurry Electrolysis to treat complicated antimony-lead concentrate, antimony and lead can be separated in one step. And 2# metal antimony can be achieved in cathode directly at the same time. Lead in concentrate is restrained still in the residue at the form of PbCl2. After converting the residue with ammonium carbonate and removing sulfur with kerosene, the high quality of lead concentrate (Pb is above 45%, S is below 15%) and pure sulfur can be achieved, respectively. The recovery of all in Slurry Electrolysis process is as: Sb 95%, Pb 95%, Ag 80%, S 60%.

Jan 1, 2014

By S. N. Shahcheraghi

Grinding is one of the most important and expensive steps in mineral processing allocating about 70% of the total energy in the plants. Nowadays, for optimizing the energy consumption in these equipments, the rock behavior and its size distribution during the crushing have been normally predicted using selection and breakage functions to be able to optimally model and design grinding circuits. For this purpose, the case of Miduk copper mine in Kerman province, Iran was studied. The samples were taken from primary ball mills feed and were subject to screen analysis to achieve uniform sizes. Then, selection and breakage functions were determined at the different grinding times in laboratorial ball mill. Finally, ore size distribution in different grinding times was estimated using MATLAB software

Sep 1, 2012

By Yuexin Han

The wet preconcentration of haematite, comminuted by high-pressure grinding roller was studied, using the cylindrical ferromagnetic medium. The effects of various factors including rod diameter, rod gap and background magnetic field intensity (BMFI) on the performances of preconcentration for different size fractions and the force analysis of single mineral particles with different diameter in the separation zone were emphatically investigated. The results showed that as the rod diameter increased, the rod gap decreased, and the BMFI increased the tailings grade and the tailings yield reduced while the concentrates recovery raised that was regardless of variations in feed size distribution. For the -3.2+0.18mm size fraction preconcentration, the magnetic medium with a rod diameter of 4 mm and a rod gap of 7 mm at BMFI of 454kA/m is used to get a higher performance. For -0.18mm size fraction preconcentration, the magnetic medium with a rod diameter of 4 mm and a rod gap of 4 mm at BMFI of 263kA/m is used to get a higher performance. After the classifying preconcentration, at the optimum condition, the overall concentrate grade increases by 9.56 percentage points and the concentrate recovery is up to the 82.67% with a tailing grade of 10.68% and a tailing yield of 40.31%. The magnetic force, exerted on weekly magnetic minerals was proportional, to the specific susceptibility and square of BMFI. For the same BMFI, the magnetic capturing force on coarse particles increased, and that on fine particles decreased with the increasing of rod diameter. For the lean locked-particles, considering the gravity and viscous resistance of particles, rods with a big diameter were beneficial to the capture of coarse particles and had no influence on the capture of fine particles, while rods with a small diameter were good for the capture of fine particles and not suitable for the capture of coarse particles of lean locked-particles. Keywords: low grade haematite, high-pressure grinding roller, high intensity magnetic separation, pre-concentration

Sep 1, 2012

By Tilak Raj Mankhand, Mudila Dhanunjaya Rao, Kamalesh K. Singh

"Zinc dust is used for the removal of primary impurities by cementation from the zinc sulphate electrolyte before electrowinning of zinc. However, the industrial zinc electrowinning plants has been reported that the zinc dust consumption is in large excess than the stoichiometric requirement. In the present investigation, morphology of the zinc dust has been altered by ball milling and utilized for the cementation of cadmium, which is one of the major impurity and compared the change in the rate of cementation with original zinc dust. Initially, 325 mesh size zinc dust was used for the optimization of the excess quantity of zinc dust to be used at a temperature of 50 °C. The chemical analysis of zinc dust before and after ball milling and morphology were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the solution was characterized by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. The rate of cementation increased with increase in ball milling time. The residual precipitate obtained after filtration was also characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis. Finally experiments were conducted to study the effect of temperature and kinetics of cadmium cementation using first order reaction kinetics. Based on the integral method, the calculated activation energy for the cadmium cementation with 4-hours ball milled zinc dust was found to be 3.39 KJ/mole. INTRODUCTION Primary production of zinc in the world is carried out by hydrometallurgical route. The primary impurities in the neutralized zinc sulphate solution that cause negative effect on electrowinning are copper, cadmium, cobalt, and nickel. Copper diminishes the current efficiency and cadmium contaminates the cathode zinc (Morgan, 1977) while electro winning. Nickel and cobalt lead to perforation in the zinc deposit and prevents the electro winning process (Abrasheva et al, 1984). Due to higher electro positivity of these metal impurities than zinc, they can co-deposit with cathode zinc at the time of electrolysis. In addition to that, some possible impurities (including cobalt) in the electrolysis may lower the hydrogen overvoltage, allowing deposition of hydrogen at cathode resulting in fall of current efficiency. The deposition of zinc on the cathode is possible only at higher hydrogen overvoltage which is practicable in the absence of such impurities (Raghavan et al., 1999). Cementation is one of the prominent purification technique, and in that less reactive metal can be replaced by highly reactive metal by allowing them into precipitation. Cementation of cadmium from zinc sulphate electrolyte is being done by the addition of zinc dust."

Jan 1, 2018

By M. Kalicinski, M. Lyssyy

"Access to information is a key component for making improvements to any process. This is particularly true for all aspects of the iron mining and steelmaking process. The ability to make rapid control decisions can significantly influence process outcomes, including ensuring product specification, mining quality, transportation limits, upgrade factors, waste bypass and direct shipping, among many others. While traditional laboratory methods provide feedback for such processes, having access to analysis results in real-time can lead to positive reactive and predictive control decisions to be made rapidly, leading to significant improvements throughout the process. Scantech has been designing, manufacturing and supplying technological products to the minerals industry since 2002 to enable the availability of such real-time information to a mine or plant, with the benefits being enjoyed by a wide range of operators. This paper provides a summary of the available technologies used in the iron ore and steel industries, as well as providing case studies of their use in African and Australian iron ore and European steel, as well as a description of the potential benefits of a range of analysis equipment.INTRODUCTION Access to information is critical for any process, and is a fundamental component for making process control decisions. In order to yield effective processing outcomes, it is important for that information to be readily available, preferably as quickly as possible, and to be as accurate as possible. While speed and accuracy are often traded off against each other, there are numerous technologies available in a processing environment that allow for both rapid flow of information and a high level of accuracy. The use of on-belt analysis equipment has a long trusted history of use in a number of mining and processing environments and industries, providing information such as elemental composition and grade of conveyed materials, moisture content, waste proportion and energy information. Australian company Scantech has been a provider of such equipment since 1981, and has become an industry leader in both the supply and development of on-belt analysers across a range of industries."

Jan 1, 2018

By S. M. Saghaeian

The studies on the product finer than 12 mm due to crushing and sizing plant of Gol-e-Gohar Iron Ore mine showed which this material contains significant amount of valuable iron minerals. Based on the carried out experimental studies on representative samples of fine hematite iron ore, a processing flow sheet was designed to upgrade iron content. This plant is known as first hematite iron ore enrichment plant in Iran which the dry medium intensity magnetic separators (with magnetic field intensity 4500 gauss and high gradient) has been used. The main objective of the plant is production of high iron product with iron content more than 61% and weight recovery more than 55% from the feed with iron content of 54%. In this plant, at first material are screened by a single deck screen (6mm), then oversize particles is separated at one stage by magnetic separator, while undersize ones at two stages. Based on the results of experimental tests, a final high iron product with iron content of 62.4% and weight recovery 63.9% can be achieved. It should mention which the iron content can be enhanced through increasing the speed of magnetic separators especially at the part of separation of finer iron ore.

Jan 1, 2014

Certainly, one of the core processes for the recovery of fine magnetic susceptible iron ore particles, mainly hematite iron ores, is the wet high intensity magnetic separation or WHIMS. This paper outlines a variety of recent developments and innovative process designs in the JONES® type WHIMS. It highlights the latest examples of flow sheets in terms of the diversity of combined rougher, scavenger, cleaner stages and adds to this the new more advanced JONES® type WHIMS equipment technologies like the HIGH FLOW ? HF, the QUATTRO ? Q and the SPLITT OPERATION ? SP. As a result of the increase of the capacity and magnetic intensity, the specific production cost could be decreased. The high worldwide acceptance for this continuous development testifies for the success and state of the art technology.

Sep 1, 2012

By M. R. Tavakoli Mohammadi

Novel solvent extraction technologies in recent decades have made attempts to show the problems in applying this method for dilute solutions and find appropriate solutions to overcome them. Improving the equipments performance used in this method for dilute solutions, cause development of usable resources and reduction of operational costs. Furthermore, appropriate conditions provide for using dilute solutions produced in various industries as a new source of valuable elements. Thus, this proposal can be a very good solution for treatment of these solutions and reduce the environmental impacts associated with them. The purpose of this study is to introduce a new method of Column Floto Extraction (CFE), which has been invented in this regard. In this method, using spargers similar to Jameson cell downcomer in floatation process, the organic phase bubble dispersion has been used instead of its drop dispersion in aqueous phase for the two-phase mixture operation. This operation mode has caused a higher extraction percentage of solute in high aqueous to organic ratios due to enhancement of contact area. In this study, in addition to explaining the advantages and features of this method, we have dealt with its design and performance mode.

Sep 1, 2012

By Ashish Agarwal

For a correct evaluation of the performance of any process, it is important to reconcile the data gathered in the plant from the material balance point of view for all the streams flowing in and flowing out of the process unit. There are two main approaches to reconciliation of data, which involve minimization of the sum of the squares of: (i) the closure residuals and (ii) the component adjustments; both weighed with the estimated variances of the components. Though, these approaches have served us well, it has not been possible to ascertain if the reconciled values for various components and the split factors obtained using these approaches are truly the best estimates. In this paper, this aspect has been investigated by analyzing pseudo-experimental data of known error structure on size classification of particles in a hydrocyclone. Three types of basic error structures were considered for the measured component values: absolute error, relative error and chi-square error. The error structure was modified by adding a random component of error using normally distributed random numbers corresponding to zero mean and different levels of variance. By carrying out a large number of simulation experiments, it has been shown that in the presence of random errors, irrespective of the basic error structure of data, which is usually unknown, the chi-square error minimization criterion can be used to obtain most reliable results. Keywords: data reconciliation methods, chi-square error minimization

Sep 1, 2012

By A. J. Ren

The ore, dealt with in this paper, is a certain rutile in Shanxi province, China. A trunk flowsheet with gravity concentration is used, and the TiO2 grade of rutile concentrate is about 90%, but the TiO2 recovery is less than 50%. In order to increase the rutile recovery, the laboratory test, using the truck flowsheet with flotation, is carried out. The flowsheet is that firstly floatable gangue is re-moved by flotation; secondly rutile is recovered by flotation; and thirdly impurity is separated by LIMS, HIMS, gravity concentration and flotation from the rutile concentrate. In rutile flotation, BK423, a phosphonic acid, is used as rutile collector, and Na2SiF6 is used as silicates depressant. The experimental result shows that the recovery of rutile concentrate is improved obviously, and the recovery of ultimate rutile concentrate is 68.01% TiO2 and 84.88% rutile. The TiO2 grade of first concentrate is 95.98%, and the TiO2 recovery is 45.60%. The TiO2 grade of second concentrate is 80.53%, and the recovery is 22.41%. Furthermore, magnetite and ilmenite are recovered in the flowsheet.

Jan 1, 2014

By V. A. Chanturiya

The application of High-Power Nanosecond Electromagnetic Pulses (HPEMP) irradiation in dressing of resistant gold- containing ores appears attractive as this technique provides for a significant increase in precious metal recovery (30-80% for gold and 20-50% for silver), therewith helping reduce both energy consumption and the cost of products. The prospects for applying pulsed power technologies in the mineral processing in order to increase the contrast between the flotation properties of raw minerals dictate the need to perform special studies of the effect of HPEMP on the structural state, phase composition, and physical and chemical properties of surfaces of sulfide minerals as the main carriers of precious metals. This study deals with plausible mechanisms of the micro- and nanophases formation on the surfaces of sulfide minerals under the effect of high-power nanosecond electromagnetic pulses (HPEMP) with high electric field strength ~107 V/m. This paper discusses reasons for the changing of flotation behavior of natural pyrite and arsenopyrite during the pulsed-power treatment. It was concluded that HPEMP treatment may be regarded as a tool to change the surface composition and sorption ability of collector (xanthate) onto mineral surface, and, therefore, it allows to control the hydrophobic-hydrophilic surface balance. Single mineral flotation tests have been shown the significant increasing of the pyrite recovery while the arsenopyrite was depressed. The results of gold containing pyrite (pyrrhotite)-arsenopyrite ore flotation in batch approve the decreasing of arsenic recovery in sulfide concentrate. Keywords: pyrite, arsenopyrite, high power nanosecond pulses, activation, selective flotation

Sep 1, 2012

By Xiaodong Jia, Williams. Richard A.

This paper describes the recent developments, arising from research at Leeds, in the computer modelling of packing of complex shaped particles and prediction of physical properties of the structures represented by the packing. The computer model DigiPac, is capable of packing particles of any shapes and sizes in a container of arbitrary geometry. The ability to predict packing structure of real particle shapes and to compute directly some structure-dependent physical properties (such as liquid permeability, mechanical strength/ stability, compaction and sintering, dissolution and leaching, etc.) is obviously highly desirable and has significant potential in industrial applications. Examples are presented relating to the packing of granular materials.

Jan 1, 2003

By Matti Kongas, Kari Saloheimo, Antti Remes

"The paper studies the control performance of the flotation process as a function of the measurement accuracy and sampling frequency of an on-stream XRF analyzer, using a simple dynamic model. An additional aim is to assess how the economical result of a mineral flotation process depends on the quality of process control based on the on-line elemental assays.An on-stream XRF analyzer measures the concentrations of slurry lines in a continuous cycle from several process points. The control performance depends on the analytical accuracy and sampling frequency of the concentration measurement. With a long cycle time, the state of the process changes before a new measurement becomes available. With short measurement times the statistical variance of the counted X-ray pulses increases, increasing the random error in the analysis. In addition, the measurement accuracy depends on the concentration of the component to be measured from the slurry.To quantify the effect of analysis error and frequency to process control, a simple dynamic process model is created in the Matlab environment. Data from a copper flotation circuit is used as a test case. The process model comprises a first order reaction equation and the grade-recovery -relationship estimated from process data. The control was modeled using the control strategies implemented into a rule based advanced control system.The economical performance of the control was studied by calculating the overall net smelter return at various analyzer parameter combinations. The economical performance of the process declines strongly when the sampling cycle is increased. In studied case the sample measurement time did not have a significant effect on the results. The economical performance of the simulated process corresponds to an almost uncontrolled process when sampling cycles longer than 40 min are applied."

Jan 1, 2003