CiDRA Minerals Processing has announced that it has engaged Koch Project Solutions, LLC to provide front end engineering and design and project execution management services for the commercial scale-up and global deployment of what CiDRA says is a novel new mineral separation system for sulphide minerals & an alternative to flotation. CiDRA is best known in mining for its SONARtrac flow meters for measuring flow on any liquid slurry application.
The company states: “Flotation based separation technology has been utilised in the minerals processing industry for well over 100 years. Over the years there have been incremental improvements to the process, but CiDRA Minerals Processing has developed a breakthrough technology for separating sulphide-based minerals such as copper and gold. This novel technology is capable of processing slurry streams with a wide range of particle sizes from ultra-fine to ultra-coarse. This enables the operators to unlock throughput capacity by increasing the primary grind size of the plant without sacrificing recovery. This significantly improves overall plant economics, reduces specific energy consumption, reduces water consumption, and enables dry stacking of tailings.”
“The mining industry is aggressively seeking sustainable solutions to recover more copper and gold from their existing mine sites. CiDRA has demonstrated through bench testing with over 15 mine sites and a pilot plant program at a North American mine site that it can positively impact the recovery rates of existing mine sites. CiDRA is in the scale-up phase and we appreciate being able to tap into Koch Project Solutions, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, and their vast experience in guiding the scale-up of novel processing plants. CiDRA’s focus is on accelerating the delivery of this novel mineral processing technology to its large existing mining customer base. Having Koch Project Solutions is the latest addition to our team that already includes our partners Altana AG, a global specialty chemicals company and Mitsubishi a global mineral resources investor. Together we will serve the global mining industry,” said Kevin Didden, CEO of CiDRA.
“We are excited to bring Koch resources to bear on the advancement of CiDRA’s breakthrough technology,” said Paul Switzer, President of Koch Project Solutions. CiDRA and Koch Project Solutions have forged a beneficial partnership that will deliver this valuable technology at a meaningful scale. It fits well into the Koch vision to help derive superior societal benefits from existing resources.”
