Machine Learning-based Quality Prediction in the Froth Flotation Process of Mining : Master’s Degree Thesis in Microdata Analysis

In the iron ore mining fraternity, in order to achieve the desired quality in the froth flotation processing plant, stakeholders rely on conventional laboratory test technique which usually takes more than two hours to ascertain the two variables of interest. Such a substantial dead time makes it difficult to put the inherent stochastic nature of the plant system in steady-state. Thus, the present study aims to evaluate the feasibility of using machine learning algorithms to predict the percentage of silica concentrate (SiO2) in the froth flotation processing plant in real-time. The predictive model has been constructed using iron ore mining froth flotation system dataset obtain from Kaggle. Different feature selection methods including Random Forest and backward elimination technique were applied to the dataset to extract significant features. The selected features were then used in Multiple Linear Regression, Random Forest and Artificial Neural Network models and the prediction accuracy of all the models have been evaluated and compared with each other. The results show that Artificial Neural Network has the ability to generalize better and predictions were off by 0.38% mean square error (mse) on average, which is significant considering that the SiO2 range from 0.77%- 5.53% -( mse 1.1%) . These results have been obtained within real-time processing of 12s in the worst case scenario on an Inter i7 hardware. The experimental results also suggest that reagents variables have the most significant influence in SiO2 prediction and less important variable is the Flotation Column.02.air.Flow. The experiments results have also indicated a promising prospect for both the Multiple Linear Regression and Random Forest models in the field of SiO2 prediction in iron ore mining froth flotation system in general. Meanwhile, this study provides management, metallurgists and operators with a better choice for SiO2 prediction in real-time per the accuracy demand as opposed to the long dead time laboratory test analysis causing incessant loss of iron ore discharged to tailings