The new copper processing plant of the Sarcheshmeh copper complex consists of two parallel circuits. After a primary crushing, the ore is sent to a SAG mill, and the product is further ground in a ball mill. The overflow of the hydrocyclones is fed to a flotation circuit that contains 8 rougher tank cells (RCS130), 3 cleaner cells (RCS50), 5 scavenger cells (RCS50), and a flotation column (as r...

This paper presents a new approach for flotation circuit design. Initially, it was proven numerically and analytically that in order to achieve the highest recovery in different circuit configurations, the best equipment must be placed at the beginning stage of the flotation circuits. The size of the entering particles and the types of streams including pulp and froth were considered as the bas...

The efficiency of mineral processing operations, i.e. concentrating raw ores for metal extraction, impacts significantly on the operating cost of the final metal products. First, valuable minerals are liberated from the ore matrix in a comminution circuit, comprised of grinding (e.g., ball mills) and classification (e.g. hydrocyclones) units. The liberated minerals are subsequently concentrated...

The potential for improved selectivity has made column flotation cells a popular choice for upgrading fine coal. Unfortunately, recent production data from full-scale column plants indicate that many industrial installations have failed to meet original expectations in terms of clean coal recovery. Theoretical studies performed using a simple dispersion model showed that this inherent shortcomi...

The recovery and concentrate grade, used simultaneously, are the most widely accepted measures of assessing metallurgical performance. Meanwhile, new challenges are being found with more complex ores around the world, a new methodology to evaluate flotation circuits more accurately is used to keep the Mineral Industry afloat in a changing world by increasing revenues. The flotation process is d...

A suitable grinding fineness and flow-sheet could potentially reduce the mechanical entrainment of gangue minerals in the flotation process of microcrystalline graphite. In this study, the suitable grinding fineness of a commercial graphite ore was estimated by mineralogy analysis and laboratory grind-flotation tests. The target grind size of this ore should be 92% passing 74 μm based on the mi...

The present research reviews two basic approaches for the separation circuit configuration analysis. The first approach is to optimize the circuit configuration. In this method, after a circuit modeling, a variety of search algorithms and mathematical optimization methods are used. Previous works show that this approach has more application in the flotation process. The second approach called t...

A novel mineral slurry assaying method combining visible and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy and traditional X-ray fluorescence has recently been developed. The improved method is capable of high-frequency assaying of slurry grades in zinc and copper flotation, thus being able to reveal possible rapid oscillations in the grades. In this study, the new measurements are used to detect osci...

This paper interests to the properties of fault-tolerant control system with respect to reliability of components. The aim of this paper is to present the need of reliability analysis in fault-tolerant control design. The focus of our study is on the reconfigurability analysis of systems with actuator faults under reliability constraints. This analysis proves that control reconfigurability is a...

Graphite ore collected from Hunan province, south China was characterized by chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction, and optical microscopy. Rougher and multi-stage flotation tests using a mechanical flotation cell and a flotation column containing an additional centrifugal force field were carried out to promote its grade and economic value. In rougher flotation, both the mechanical flotation ce...