Speaker
Description
Comminution is the process through which the size of rock extracted from a mine is reduced, so that a certain mineral can be more easily obtained. This stage is the one that uses the most energy in the copper production process. Therefore, a reduction in the energy consumption of comminution would have a significant impact in the industry and also in the environment, as CO2 emissions can be significantly reduced.
A heating pretreatment of the rock, before comminution, reduces the energy requirements of comminution due to fracture generation produced by thermal stress in the mineral. In this work, we analyzed fracture generation in CMET copper ore due to a heating pretreatment using conventional furnaces. A Bond test was carried out in order to investigate the reduction in energy of the process due to the thermal treatment. Samples of 7 kg were taken with a size - # 6 (3.36 mm) which were heated in an electric furnace at temperatures of 300, 400, 500 and 600 ° C. Grindability tests were carried out through the conventional Bond method. Besides, to elucidate the mechanism by which the cracks are generated, microstructural characterization of the samples was performed by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope.
Through the analyses it was found that the heating pre-treatment resulted in a reduction of 19 % of the Bond work index. The microscopic analysis shows that this reduction is due to induced micro cracks, which occur in between different phases and though them, which may have an impact in mineral liberation. The results of this work are the first one of its kind performed with Chilean copper ores, and it is crucial initial step in the development of a technology that fulfills the requirements of decreasing the mining industry energy consumption.
| Speaker Country | CHILE |
|---|