Evaluating rougher-scavenger flotation circuits using geometallurgical particle-based approach

The major challenges currently facing the mining industry are related to the growing trend to deal with deeper ore bodies and consequently increasing complex ores. This has led to the development of new approaches to tackle incoming issues by integrating different parts of the value chain in order to offer appropriate solutions. One of these is the geometallurgical approach, which seeks to integrate geology and mineral processing to optimize ore beneficiation. This assessment can be carried out using a methodology called "Particle Tracking" that basically allows to go a step forward in the study of the phenomena occurring during ore beneficiation from the common assessment by size to the particle level. In other words, this methodology enables to incorporate to the analysis mineral liberation and the different mineral phases in particles. This is essentially what is described in literature as “Particle based approach”. This way, streams are regarded as a set of particles that have different properties and therefore their deportment throughout beneficiation vary accordingly. The purpose of this work was to apply “particle tracking” to samples from Pyhäsalmi beneficiation plant in central Finland. Rougher and scavenger flotation cells of the copper circuit were the main focus of this study. Mineral liberation analysis was used over samples of feed, concentrate and tailings for both rougher and scavenger. Mass balance and reconciliation were performed for bulk streams, streams divided by size and particle classes (classification of particles based on liberation degree) using HSC10 software from Outotec. The main findings show that recovery of chalcopyrite in rougher is above 80% over all size fractions, highest recovery is achieved at 90 µm and most liberated chalcopyrite particles present in the ore were reported to rougher concentrate. In case of scavenger, recovery to concentrate is reduced to a highest value of 66% between 60 µm to 80 µm with pronounced variation over size fractions. Most of chalcopyrite bearing minerals reported to scavenger concentrate are binary (two mineral phases) and complex (more than two mineral phases). Final tailings exhibit minimum amount of chalcopyrite, which is a good indicator of the efficiency of the copper circuit. In terms of recovery of chalcopyrite bearing particles, rougher reported to the first concentrate mainly liberated, binary and complex particles. An interesting finding was that complex particles to the first concentrate showed a particular high recovery. The second rougher concentrate mostly reported liberated and binary particles. As for scavenger, the first concentrate mostly reported liberated and complex particles while the second concentrate mainly reported complex particles. Final tailings exhibit essentially complex particles linked to coarse size fraction and the bulk grade of chalcopyrite for that stream was found to be noticeably low.The presentation was made through the zoom platform