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Author: Admin | 2025-04-27
Of the feed material. But with technologies like Eriez’s HydroFloat, they’re suggesting that we narrow the particle-size distribution to create more efficiency. It’s a much more elegant, accurate and precise approach to the process.”Embracing Coarse Particle FlotationTo dig a little deeper into some of these “elegant and precise” technologies, E&MJ turned to Eric Wasmund, global managing director at Eriez Flotation. “With CPF, you don’t have to grind the ore to the fine endpoint that’s required for conventional flotation technology,” he explained. “You can separate ore from gangue at a size that is roughly twice the size of conventional technology. Which means you don’t have to over grind and you don’t have to waste any energy, which is very expensive. Also, mines don’t have to worry about storing tailings that are very fine and unstable — the material can be easily dewatered — and you can reduce conventional flotation capacity as well.“It depends upon the ore and its density but, for copper, which we’re really focusing on, you get an acceptable recovery in conventional flotation up to about 120 or 130 microns. Certainly, it drops off before 200 microns. “With CPF, you can usually take that up to 400 microns, which reduces the amount of grinding needed by half. In grinding, the amount of energy required increases disproportionately as the material becomes finer — the finer the material being ground, the more energy is required — which is why ultra-fine grinding mills use a lot of energy.”According to a new report from Weir Group, Mining Energy Consumption 2021, comminution accounts for 25% of final energy consumption at the average mine site. Across the hard-rock mining sector, this equates to around 1% of total global energy consumption every year. The report author, Marc Allen, stated that a 5% incremental improvement in energy efficiency across comminution could result in GHG emission reductions of more than 30 million metric tons (mt) of CO2e. To put that into perspective, New Zealand’s total emissions stand at around 35 million mt of CO2e.If grinding requirements could be reduced by half at some mine sites through the use of CPF, that would have a massive impact on global GHG emissions. CPF is not a new concept. However, what is new is its application at a commercial scale in base metals. Eriez has been applying CPF in phosphate and potash for 20 years and, in the past eight years,
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