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Maximising the benefits of sensor-based ore sorting machines

Base metals, Comminution of minerals, Environmental, Mine operation news, Mineral processing, Mineral project development, Mining services, Power supply for mines, Precious metals, Sustainable mining, Water management, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ore sorting has been shown to provide both economic and environmental benefits, but many mines are not yet fully utilising this technology, according to HPY Technology.

Yet, the company’s ore sorting machines are providing a breakthrough solution for Fankou, one of Asia’s largest lead and zinc mines, resulting in an annual revenue increase of around $9.22 million.

Located in Renhua County, Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province, Fankou is owned by Shenzhen Zhongjin Lingnan Nonfemet Co Ltd. The mine has been producing lead and zinc for over 60 years. However, with new underground mining processes, such as vertical crater retreat and large blasting, more waste rock is being introduced into the crushing, grinding and flotation processes, resulting in higher production costs and energy consumption.

Furthermore, under the “zero waste” target set by the Environmental Protection Law of China, Fankou’s tailings pond needs to be closed by 2025. As of 2018, the mine’s annual processing capacity was 1.5 Mt, with 600,000 t ending up in the tailings pond. In addition, Fankou’s waste rock piles had reached approximately 2 Mt. With the continuous addition of around 200,000 t/y of waste rock, these piles grew larger. With the pressure to meet the zero waste target, Fankou was under pressure to make a change.

In 2017, Fankou conducted exploratory tests of sensor-based ore sorting machines with Ganzhou HPY Technology Co Ltd. The result of the initial tests showed promise and addressed the problems the mine was beginning to face, according to HPY Technology. As a result, Fankou decided to add HPY Technology’s ore sorting machines to the industrial design plan of their mineral processing plant in 2018, and HPY Technology’s machines were officially added to the plant in 2019.

The Fankou lead-zinc mine currently produces about 1.4 Mt/y of ore, and it is expected that more than 105,000 t of waste rock will be pre-rejected from the raw ore throughout the year. Ore sorting technology can discard a large amount of waste rock from the raw ore before it is fed into the flotation system, reducing the amount of waste rock entering the mill and saving on electricity costs.

Fankou’s mineral processing plant uses four Classic Series P60-X1400 ore sorting machines. The machine processes the particle size range of +12-90 mm, which accounts for about 50% of the raw ore. This accounts for 2,600 t of ore, rejecting 400-500 t/d of waste rock. After pre-concentration, the lead and zinc content in the waste rock are below 0.3%, and the sulphur and iron content is below 3.8%. Therefore, the ore sorting process enriches the ore grade by 1.08% for lead and zinc and 2% for sulphur and iron.

Four Classic Series P60-X1400 ore sorters in Fankou’s mineral processing plant

After sorting the waste rock from the raw ore, this waste rock can be sold as construction aggregate to bring further economic benefits to the Fankou mine. This has also seen the amount of tailings decrease and the service life of the tailings pond extend significantly, resulting in remarkable energy savings and consumption performance, while also enhancing the mine’s societal value, HPY Technology says.

Mr Wang, Project Manager of Fankou Mineral Processing Plant, said: “We are proud to be one of the world’s first lead and zinc mines to utilise ore sorting fully. We see significant economic benefits for using HPY Technology’s ore sorting machine, especially for low-grade mines. China has huge lead and zinc ore reserves, the second largest in the world. But the grade of the deposits is generally low, with many poor and few rich ores. The average grade is about 1.5% for lead and 2.5% for zinc. Reserves with a grade below 5% account for more than 90% of lead ore, and reserves below 8% account for more than 85% of zinc ore. We hope to continue contributing to the mining industry’s progress and are willing to recommend HPY Technology’s ore sorting machine to our peers.”

The Classic Series used in Fankou’s mineral processing plant is a benchmark in the ore sorting industry, according to HPY Technology. This machine uses dual-energy X-ray technology, combined with high-speed air jets to sort ore from waste rock. The X-ray technology penetrates the ore and creates a grayscale image that distinguishes between target and vein minerals. This image is then processed by an artificial intelligence algorithm, which uses the information to accurately sort the ore and waste rock. The Classic Series has undergone numerous iterations, ensuring stable and efficient operation, HPY Technology says. It is currently the most widely used ore sorting machine in China’s mining industry, according to the company.

Fankou Lead-Zinc mine, mineral processing plant

HPY Technology | Fankou lead-zinc mine, mineral processing plant
Machine used Four Classic Series P60-X1400
Processing capacity 2,600 t/d
Particle size +12-90 mm
Concentrated ore grade (Pb+Zn) 12%
Waste rock grade (Pb+Zn) <0.3%
Grinding grade (Pb+Zn) increased by 1.08%
Rejection rate 16-17%

Fankou’s mineral processing plant can save more than $2.9 million/y by using HPY Technology’s ore sorting machines, resulting in an annual profit margin of more than $7.8 million, considering the comprehensive benefits of increased plant capacity, tailings reduction and construction aggregate sales.

In addition to the four Classic Series P60-X1400 in the mineral processing plant, the Construction Materials Plant has three HPY Technology ore sorting machines to process the waste rock from the mineral processing plant and its existing waste rock piles. The waste rock is taken to the construction material plant for another round of sorting, with the remaining waste rock being used for construction aggregates. The three machines at the construction materials plant also process the 2 million cu.m of waste rock initially stockpiled in the tailings pond.

Mr Luo, Project Manager of Solid Waste Treatment, said: “In the past, we could only transport solid waste back to the shaft for filling. After using HPY’s ore sorting machines, we can now sort out all the ore from solid waste and recover the value of the resources. The remaining waste rock can be sold as construction aggregates, which is a win-win solution. Currently, we are also sorting waste rock that was stored before using HPY’s ore sorting machines. The ore grade is about 3%. Sensor-based sorting technology enriches the ore grade to 12-14%. Sorting results show that the rejection rate exceeds 95%. In the global mining industry, Fankou is one the first to successfully apply intelligent ore sorting technology in lead and zinc mines, achieving maximum resource value recovery and is great for the environment.”

According to Mr Luo, waste rock that was initially made into construction aggregates now yields more than 1,500 t/y of lead and zinc metal, which has been able to be recovered through the Construction Materials Plant. In addition, the ore sorting process reduces the waste rock’s sulphur content. This substantially improves the grade of the construction aggregates, increasing its sales price. As a result, the waste rock made into construction aggregates generates about $977,000/y in economic benefits. In addition, the recovered ore generates over $2.8 million/y in benefits.

Fankou has utilised sensor-based ore sorting to its full extent, HPY Technology says, using it during the comminution process to pre-reject waste rock to increase its lead-zinc ore grade. The company also sees benefits from pre-rejected waste rock in reduced costs in its grinding process. With pressure to control the amount of tailings, the pre-rejected waste rock lowers the amount of tailings entering the tailings pond to help the company in its aim of closing the tailings pond in 2025. In addition, sensor-based ore sorting has allowed the company to gain additional revenue through the recovery of lead-zinc from their waste rock piles, while also utilising these piles for construction aggregates. Overall, the introduction of ore sorting has allowed the company to expand its resource recovery. By pre-rejecting and enriching low ore grades, Fankou can now mine areas previously deemed un-mineable due to having low grade ore, allowing them to increase the processing capacity each year.

Fankou lead-zinc mine, Construction Materials Plant

HPY Technology | Fankou lead-zinc mine, Construction Materials Plant
Machine used One Insight Series | Two Classic Series
Concentrated ore grade 12-14%
Waste rock grade Pb 0.04%, Zn 0.10%
Concentrate recovery rate Pb 96.76%, Zn 92.8%
Rejection rate 95%
Enrichment ratio Pb 9.68, Zn 9.28
Particle size +10-50 mm

The Insight Series used in Fankou’s Construction Materials Plant adopts a combined detection method comprised of a VIS HD dual-sided imaging system and X-ray technology, which can be customised according to the physical characteristics of different ores. The machine can collect the ore’s internal and external information simultaneously and with an AI algorithm, which can significantly improve the accuracy of ore sorting and better for sorting complex ores.

Compared with traditional ore sorting machines, which use a belt, the upgraded Insight Series utilises a vibrating feeder and short belt that leads to ore free fall, HPY Technology says. With the optimised mechanical design, the ore falls more evenly, avoiding ore overlap that affects recognition accuracy. In addition, the machine has various feeding widths (1,600 mm, 3,200 mm), which leads to processing capacities of 40-150 t/h (+10 mm-80 mm) to meet the needs of different mines needs during the beneficiation process.

As one of Asia’s largest lead and zinc mines, Fankou has taken steps to maximise the economic value of its process. Through the utilisation of sensor-based ore sorting, the company has seen significant increases in revenue and savings. Having worked with HPY Technology for over five years, Fankou looks to continue this partnership to further the research on the benefits of ore sorting machines. As HPY Technology continues innovating and revolutionising mineral processing, the benefits will only continue to grow, it says.

HPY Technology Co Ltd says it is a leader in the development and manufacture of ore sorting machinery, achieving excellent results in the ore sorting of tungsten, tin, antimony, lead, zinc, copper, molybdenum, gold, phosphate and over 30 other ore types, revolutionising the traditional mineral processing process and significantly promoting the technological progress of the global mining industry. With over 400 machines in use in over 100 mines, the company says it looks to continue revolutionising mineral processing.

Red River’s Hillgrove gold op starts ramp-up process

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Red River Resources has commenced production at its Hillgrove gold operation in New South Wales, Australia, and is now ramping up to the plant’s 250,000 t/y capacity.

Gold processing follows the delivery of first ore to the Hillgrove run of mine pad on December 23 from Bakers Creek stockpile mining and trucking activities. This ore was processed by the plant on December 29.

Hillgrove, about 30 km from Armidale in New South Wales, is a past producing mine that was placed on care and maintenance in 2016 due to low prevailing antimony prices.

Prior to recommencement of mining, Hillgrove produced more than 730,000 oz of gold (in bullion and concentrates), more than 50,000 t of antimony (as metal and in concentrates), plus material amounts of by-product tungsten (in concentrates).

It has a JORC 2012 resource of 5 Mt at 4.3 g/t Au and 1.5% Sb for 692,000 oz of gold and 75,000 t of antimony. This resource is contained within six key hubs in the Hillgrove Mineral Field, with Bakers Creek being both the largest gold production centre in the field and having the deepest workings.

The Hillgrove site includes a 250,000 t/y processing plant, which comprises a selective flotation circuit (capable of producing antimony-gold and refractory gold concentrates), an antimony leach/EW/refining and casting plant, a gold cyanide leach circuit and gold room, plus a pressure oxidation circuit.

The site also has a high-density polyethylene lined tailings storage facility, which was constructed in 2006 and has about two years of production storage capacity.

All of Hillgrove’s electricity requirements are sourced from a 66 kVa grid-connected power supply from Ergon Energy with 11 kVa site power reticulation. Water is sourced from storage dams and underground workings.

Hillgrove has all the office facilities required for operations, including an administration office, mining operations offices, maintenance offices, workshops (heavy vehicle, light vehicle and boilermaker’s workshops), process plant offices, metallurgical laboratory building and first aid building, the company says.

Clean TeQ DESALX plant up and running at Kirkland Lake’s Fosterville gold mine

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Clean TeQ Holdings Limited has formally handed over a Continuous Ion Exchange Desalination (DESALX®) plant to Kirkland Lake Gold’s Fosterville gold mine in Victoria, Australia.

Clean TeQ says it was engaged to design, supply and commission a two million litre-per-day Clean TeQ DESALX mine water treatment plant, with the plant designed to deliver a sustainable water management solution by treating mine process water.

The plant construction was completed in late 2019, with commissioning and operations commencing in early 2020. Now, Clean TeQ has confirmed the plant has passed the performance tests specified in the engineering, procurement and construction contract and the customer has issued a formal notice of acceptance and completion, it said.

Sam Riggall, Clean TeQ CEO, said: “After successfully demonstrating the world’s first ever commercial scale CIF plant in Oman late last year, this is yet another moment of great significance for Clean TeQ.

“Confirmation of the successful deployment of our innovative DESALX solution for this application, designed and delivered by Clean TeQ, is strong validation of our proprietary continuous ion exchange technology, and provides us with a firm foothold in the mining waste water treatment market from which we can continue to grow the business.”

The DESALX technology consists of two continuous ionic filtration (CIF®) modules in series removing divalent cations and anions present in the water through complementary processes. The modules contain ion exchange resins that are cycled between columns using air lifts, allowing for continuous operation and regeneration of the system. This system increases impurity removal efficiency, reduces chemical use, and provides protection against fouling, according to Clean TeQ.

The DESALX solution is well suited to purification of difficult to treat waste waters with high hardness, sulphate, and heavy metals as well as suspended solids which can foul reverse osmosis membranes. These types of waste waters are common in the mining industry, including acid mine drainage water, the company explained.

At Fosterville, the equipment provided by Clean TeQ includes a precipitation package to remove antimony and arsenic. The effluent from the clarifiers is treated by the DESALX plant to remove sulphate, calcium and magnesium with gypsum as the only by-product. The DESALX effluent is then further treated by reverse osmosis to produce water for re-use.

“The Clean TeQ system is a key enabling component of the customer’s overall water management strategy which includes a medium-term target of creating a true ‘zero liquid discharge’ solution that does not produce any saline brine and includes aquifer reinjection,” Clean TeQ said.

Clean TeQ Water is now focused on completing one additional key project at a copper-cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a number of pilot programs in China.

“This Clean TeQ system, as well as the plants recently completed in Oman and Australia, are the first of their type anywhere in the world and have been deployed as part of three different technical solutions,” the company said. “The successful delivery and commissioning of these plants provides strong demonstration of the efficacy of Clean TeQ’s suite of proprietary ion exchange technologies and their versatility for metal extraction and wastewater treatment. As commercial scale plants, the facilities provide a valuable platform from which to now rapidly grow Clean TeQ Water.”

Costerfield gold-antimony mine firing on all cylinders thanks to RCT solution

Automation, Communications in mining, Equipment maintenance, Explosives and blasting, IoT, Mine operation news, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining safety, Mining services, , , , , , , , , , ,

Removing personnel from underground loading operations at Mandalay Resources’ Costerfield gold-antimony mine in Victoria, Australia, through RCT’s ControlMaster® Teleremote and Guidance Automation, has led to time and cost savings, as well as maintenance and safety benefits, according to a recent case study from the automation specialist.

Costerfield produces ore via a single portal underground mine with narrow vein mining carried out to extract vertical veins of ore. The mine produces up to 80,000 gold-antimony-equivalent ounces per year in a concentrate comprising around 54% antimony and 60 g/t gold.

The nature of narrow vein mining dictates that ore drives are quite thin to reduce the amount of waste material that is captured, with Costerfield’s drilling and blasting program designed to maximise ore recovery by throwing the ore towards the draw point. Historically, however, the site could only recover 75% of the ore, according to RCT, due to the remaining ore sitting in the stope void out of reach of the underground LHD as manually operated loaders could not exceed the stope brow.

Looking to increase productivity, Mandalay investigated implementing a loader that could be managed remotely to extract additional ore and to safeguard equipment operators from hazardous situations at the mine face. This led to it, in 2015, engaging RCT to implement its ControlMaster Teleremote and Guidance Automation product on a Sandvik LH203 LHD.

The automated loader enabled Mandalay Resources to retrieve significant amounts of ore that were previously unreachable, RCT said.

In recent years RCT has increased the autonomous fleet at Costerfield by commissioning ControlMaster Teleremote and Guidance Automation on a second Sandvik LH203 as well as a Sandvik LH151D.

The machines are managed from Fibre Optic Control Stations at secure locations in the underground mine protected by Laser Guard Containment Units as well as stations on the mine’s surface.

Jayson Guzzo, Major Projects and Innovation Manager – Costerfield, Mandalay Resources, said removing operators from the machine is the “best outcome” as it eliminates their exposure from one of the highest risk jobs, which is working at a stope brow.

“The small loaders we use are very rigid which has the potential for repetitive strain injuries,” he said. “They also have open cabs and, in this environment, dust, machine exhaust and debris can be an added safety concern.”

In mid-2019, Mandalay made the decision to implement a digital mine communications network to accommodate future technological growth.

Guzzo said: “Given that we are a narrow vein operation we may have to access ore a significant distance from the mine access point so we are looking at going to a digital platform so we can run a fibre backbone and autonomously operate machines over a vast distance.

“In a traditional mine, you might spend a whole week bogging a single stope before moving, but at Costerfield we might bog three or four headings in one shift, so the number of sites that we have to have set up at any one time are multiple, hence a digital system will significantly speed up the process of commissioning new drives.”

Mandalay has reported that ControlMaster Guidance Automation enabled them to carry out bogging and firing operations simultaneously, saving them substantial time which was previously spent clearing personnel to a safe distance, RCT said.

Guzzo said the solution has enabled the company to reduce shift changeover time by two thirds – which is a significant cost saving – and the site has also experienced less unplanned machine downtime.

“At Costerfield, the drives are roughly 2 m wide so Guidance Automation keeps the machines off the walls and stops them bouncing around the tunnels, so the damage to the machines is a lot less and results in significantly reduced unplanned maintenance time,” he said.

Guzzo concluded: “Relocating operators from the cab of our loaders to safer environments on the mine’s surface is essential and being able to continue bogging during firing as well as significantly reducing shift changeover time is critical to improving site productivity.

“Plant automation is definitely the way of the future in the mining industry and RCT are the leaders in that area, which is why they are our preferred supplier with this equipment.”