Tag Archives: Conjugate Anvil Hammer Mill

CMIC-backed novel comminution technology hits commissioning milestone

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The Canada Mining Innovation Council’s (CMIC) Conjugate Anvil Hammer Mill (CAHM) and MonoRoll platform technology project has reached a new milestone with hot commissioning of the MonoRoll at COREM’s testing facility in Quebec, Canada.

CAHM is a platform technology advancing two technologies in parallel where both designs break particles in a highly efficient thin particle bed. CAHM, according to CMIC, provides a more efficient alternative to high pressure grinding rolls and SAG mills, while the MonoRoll variant is designed for finer grinds and to replace inefficient rod and ball mills.

In a recent post, CMIC said hot commissioning of the MonoRoll at COREM’s testing facility, using some of the 300 t of ore contributed by Agnico Eagle Mines, was now complete. Although the MonoRoll is being tested using hard rock, there is also significant interest from the iron ore, cement and aggregate industries, CMIC says.

It added: “Fabrication of the CAHM machine is underway and if the optimised discrete element method modelling results hold, we are confident that the MonoRoll and the CAHM are on track to achieve the following significant benefits in ore grinding:

  • “Reduce energy consumption by an estimated 50% compared to best available technology;
  • “Eliminate grinding media;
  • “Increase ore feed reduction ratio; and
  • “Simplify the comminution circuits.”

CMIC is leading a consortium including experts in comminution, product development, engineering and testing as well as six major hard-rock mining companies guiding the effort and participating as potential first adopters. Included among the consortium is CTTI, Hatch, Glencore Canada – XPS (Expert Process Solutions), COREM, Teck, Agnico Eagle, Newmont and Kinross.

The MonoRoll technology is one of only six finalists in Impact Canada’s Crush It! Challenge. Launched in October 2018, Crush It! challenged Canadian innovators to deliver game-changing solutions for cleaner, more efficient rock processing.

CMIC said: “The MonoRoll project is the only finalist developing a novel grinding mill, and if the project wins the C$5 million ($3.9 million) Grand Prize, the funds would be used to engineer a large-scale machine to test in active mining operations.”

Two Crush It! Challenge finalists being guided by Glencore XPS team

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Glencore’s XPS (Expert Process Solutions) is playing a role in Natural Resources Canada’s Crush It! Challenge by volunteering consulting services to two applicants recently named finalists in the competition.

XPS has much technical and operational expertise in the area of comminution and has been willing to impart its wisdom on the two teams.

The Crush It! Challenge was announced in October 2018 with the aim to realise an innovative breakthrough in the mining industry’s most energy-intensive and inefficient processes: crushing and grinding.

The primary objectives of the challenge are to fight climate change by creating innovative technologies that reduce energy consumption and pollution, increase competitiveness by developing world-leading clean technologies, and transform the mining cycle to establish a new “future in mining”.

Semi-finalists (up to 12) receive C$10,000 ($7,402) to help them pitch their ideas to the Challenge Jury, with up to six finalists being granted up to C$800,000 to build and test their clean technologies. The winner and innovator demonstrating the most superior energy breakthrough to crush and grind rocks is awarded a C$5 million prize to fully develop and roll out their solution.

On April 30, Natural Resources Canada announced the six finalists, which including two submissions that received consulting services from Glencore’s XPS.

Gillian Holcroft from the Canada Mining Innovation Council is representing a team in the finals for her Conjugate Anvil Hammer Mill (CAHM). “CAHM is a platform technology that has the potential to reduce energy consumption by 50% and replace several types of mills,” Glencore said. “Improved sustainability and lower costs could transform non-viable mineral development projects into new mines in Canada.”

Erin Bobicki of the University of Toronto is the project leader representing another finalist for her Microwave Pre-treatment and Ore Sorting technology. “This innovation combines microwave-assisted comminution and sorting to achieve energy savings of up to 70%,” Glencore said.

“A benefit of this innovation is that it is a scalable technology that can be easily integrated as a technology add-on for existing operations, therefore, it requires a small footprint as no additional infrastructure or utilities are required to support it. Given the sizeable energy savings, the innovation has the potential to transform non-viable mining projects into new mines.”

Now that the finalists have been announced, they are readying technical reports to showcase their clean-tech solutions submissions by the November 30, 2020, deadline. In March 2021, the final grand prize winner will be announced.