Tag Archives: VPX

Metso strengthens equipment, processes, technology and people connections

Now more than ever remote assistance is needed to keep the lights on at many mining operations across the globe.

The onset of COVID-19-related restrictions has focused the industry’s attention on just how far it can and should automate operations and – nearer term – how it can keep downtime to a minimum at its processing plants.

Metso has been investing in the development of new technologies and digital solutions to aid this cause for decades.

Think of how VisioRock™ and VisioFroth™, combined with Advanced Process Control OCS-4D™, have helped operators monitor rock sizes and flotation efficiency, and optimise production overall, from control rooms far away from where the action is happening. More of its products – such as the recently launched VPX™ filter for tailings dewatering and the Foresight™ smart mining crushing and screening stations – can also be connected to various devices to help monitor equipment.

This wide portfolio of technologies to collect, analyse, and act on data from minerals processing plants was recently combined under its Metso Foresight digital portfolio, which consists of cloud-based IoT and on-premise solutions that collect and analyse machine and process data.

The move has consolidated tools such as the Metso Metrics core remote conditioning monitoring solution and the recently acquired capabilities of HighService Service – which has been providing maintenance and remote monitoring for gearless mill drives for over 20 years – into one integrated solution that mining companies can tap into.

Johanna Newcomb, Vice President, Performance Solutions at Metso, says these recent organic and inorganic investments reflect the company “doubling down” on its digital focus.

“In 2018, we launched Metso Metrics and, in 2019, the acquisition of HighService Service added remote maintenance services to our offering,” she told IM as part of a recent IM Insight Interview.

This year, the company launched its Metso Performance Center solution to keep up this rapid digital momentum.

These centres, currently in Santiago, Chile, and Changsha, China, have been established at just the right time, helping mining companies troubleshoot and carry out maintenance tasks remotely when bringing experts to site may not be possible.

Newcomb explained the rationale for their introduction: “Remote monitoring and analytics, combined with on-site assistance as needed, provides a new, proactive way for Metso to support our customers; to reduce variability of their processes, to optimise the processes and to maximise the use of their assets.”

The creation of the centres has been geared towards leveraging the vast expertise and experience within Metso of equipment, minerals processing and carrying out servicing on a global basis, according to Newcomb.

“The Metso Performance Centers are a new way of funnelling that expertise and data-driven analytics for the benefit of our customers globally,” she said.

While improving process stability, asset reliability and process efficiency and sustaining the improvement over the long term are the key aims of these centres, this type of remote service support could see the philosophy of on-site maintenance teams shift tremendously.

Instead of carrying out ‘firefighting’ tasks, they can focus on proactive elements that optimise the processing plant over the long term, according to Newcomb.

Metso has been able to facilitate such a shift using many of its digital solutions that reside at customer sites such as advanced process control systems, Visio and Audio systems, ore tracking platforms, and others.

But, how do these service centres make the most of these digital solutions?

Soledad Barbera, Head of Metso Performance Centres, explained: “The services are available globally and provided by a multi-disciplinary team of experts. There are two centres in operation, one in Santiago, Chile, currently supporting all time zones, and one in Changsha, China, which services the Chinese market area.”

In the ‘first line of defence’ at these centres, specialised engineers monitor connected equipment and processes. This sees them scrutinising analytics, interpreting data, and delivering insights and recommendations for actions. Customers – and potentially an on-site team of Metso technicians – receive this information.

Barbera says Metso is in the process of expanding the first line of monitoring in different market areas, increasing the network of monitoring engineers and adding market area satellite locations. “This will provide an interface to get closer to our customers and speak to them in their own language as much as possible,” she told IM in the IM Insight Interview.

In the centre’s ‘second line of defence’ – incorporating more complex problems – expert advisors with broader operational experience and knowledge of the customer’s applications will be drafted in to solve issues.

The ‘third line of defence’ will see the company’s global network of experts mobilise to help support long-term solutions development. This includes reliability engineers and product experts.

Proactive performance

These remote services help Metso ensure desired performance is reached in deliveries and that this performance is sustained or improved further through a long-term service offering, according to Newcomb.

“By closely connecting the remote services with our existing offering, we are able to mobilise required assistance, changes, parts, etc faster, and elevate the level of proactiveness in our deliveries and services overall,” she said.

This has had a tangible impact on operations at the processing plants connected to these centres, according to Barbera.

“With remote diagnostics now offered through the Metso Performance Center, we have helped customers reduce unplanned downtime by 30%,” she said, referencing an example from the company’s gearless mill drive monitoring division (acquired with HighService Service). “We have also helped cut in half the on-site time needed to resolve failures through this remote monitoring service.”

Metso ensures all customer data is protected throughout the exchange, according to Newcomb.

“We have secure, modular connectivity options and fully respect the privacy of our customers’ data,” she said.

This broad offering has already attracted many customers to the centres, with Barbera saying around 100 pieces of equipment and solutions are currently being serviced through the remote facilities. “They are critical assets for our customers,” Barbera explained.

Expect this number to increase in the very near term, with Metso looking to further broaden the centre’s offering.

“We are expanding the analytics and digital solutions for different types of equipment and services,” Barbera said.

This expansion is very timely.

“The world has changed, and we are living a new way of doing business,” Barbera said. “Many customers want us to support them remotely and continue to be able to give them advice and recommendations.

“With the help of remote services and the latest technologies, Metso is still able to offer expert support to our customers, without a delay.”

This interview is an extract of an IM Insight Interview that will be published later this month

Metso lines up LatAm tailings tests after setting up full-scale VPX filter in Brazil

Metso says it has started full-scale testing of its VPX™ filter for tailings dewatering in Brazil, with eight tailings tests lined up with companies that process iron ore, copper and gold.

In 2019, Metso launched Tailings Management Solutions (TMS), its response to the global challenge of managing mining tailings efficiently. The company sees the dewatering of waste as the future of mining, allowing the removal of water and its reuse in the plant, itself, or as part of restoration projects. Its VPX filter is part of this TMS platform.

With an operating pressure of up to 25 bar, the VPX can deal with difficult-to-dewater tailings and enable up to 90% water recovery, according to the company.

Metso says a full-scale VPX filter is now in place at its facilities in Sorocaba, Brazil, where the first tests from samples sent by several mining companies from Brazil and Latin America started in March.

“This is not a laboratory test, but filtration in industrial-scale conditions using VPX technology, which has the capacity to process high volumes of ores,” Rodrigo Gouveia, Metso’s Vice President, Tailings Management Systems, said. “Tailings dewatering is technically and economically a viable option for today and the future. Dry stacking is widely acknowledged to be the safest, most sustainable option for tailings storage. We see that there is a strong demand for short- and medium-term technical solutions.”

Fausto Rezende, Metso’s Mining Equipment Sales Director in charge of TMS in Brazil, said there is another potential application in the adoption of tailings management: legacy dams. “We can develop projects for the dredging and concentration of the tailings and, in many cases, it is possible that this operation is more economically viable than virgin ore,” he said.

Metso already has expertise in dewatering solutions and, depending on each mining application and customer needs, carries out engineering to determine the specifications for the most suitable dewatering technology. It can pick from lamella thickeners, hydrocyclones and filters to tailings stackers, through pumping solutions and conveyor belts.

Metso commits to a filtered tailings future

Metso might have just launched a new tailings management concept, but the management of tailings and dewatering solutions are nothing new for the mineral processing company.

Helsinki-headquartered Metso developed its first VPA filter for mining in the 1980s – the maiden unit being delivered to the Greens Creek mine in Alaska (now owned by Hecla Mining) – and has since dispatched hundreds of units to mines across the globe.

In addition, Metso has a long history of designing and manufacturing tube presses and other complementary dewatering solutions; its current membrane-type filter press offers pressures up to 100 bar for particularly difficult dewatering applications, such as china clay, while its inclined plate settler (IPS) and dewatering spirals offer separation and thickening options for miners.

The VPX™ filter is the launch product that comes with this new tailings management concept, but there is much more to this focus than a lone invention.

As Niclas Hällevall, VP, Process Equipment for Metso, told IM: “It is no longer a matter of just finding the most technically-suitable equipment or solutions to do the job. It is about how to transform mining into a sustainable and long-term development.”

Metso is intent on “challenging the conventional” in this regard. This includes looking at its own approach to designing mineral processing equipment – ensuring all products use, recycle and recover water in a responsible manner – as well as the industry’s way of thinking. Instead of pursuing short-term fixes, such as implementing tailings monitoring solutions using sensors, the company thinks miners should prepare for a future where wet tailings dams are eradicated from mine sites. Dry stacking – or filtering – tailings is the end goal Metso is pursuing.

This unconventional mindset is also apparent in the design of Metso’s VPX filter. Instead of equipping the machine for high throughputs alone, Metso has built the filter to manage varied input materials and to offer pressures up to 25 bars (and perhaps even higher pressures).

Metso has eliminated the use of hydraulics on this new filter, instead using electromechanical screws to achieve the high-pressure closing that turns wet material into dried cakes with as low as 7% moisture content in some applications. This electromechanical switch could cut operating costs due to a reduction in maintenance requirements, according to the company. The modular design, meanwhile, allows the filter to be scaled to any size, plus fit it into a container for easy logistics.

An advanced control system (ACS) using self-learning functions provide customers with a solution to monitor the operation of the filter, while there are plans to equip the machine with artificial intelligence functionality to monitor the conditions of the input material and select the optimal dewatering route.

Also, the filter press offers a variable and very fast opening and closing time thanks to the robust rack and pinion system, thus providing the high-capacity dewatering large mines require.

Metso is ready with its “future-ready” solution – a pilot VPX filter is currently in Sala, Sweden, about to be taken on a roadshow. This unit has already been tested on a mine tailings application in Sweden, IM understands, with the company expecting many more trials over the next year.

As Lars Gustavsson, Business Manager, Beneficiation Solutions, explained, the company’s filter press trial plan includes taking small size samples in its laboratory before graduating to the full-scale pilot unit, which is equipped with the same ACS and sensors commercial units will have. “This gives customers all they need to build the business case,” he said.

The Metso tailings management concept goes further: Hällevall says the use of the Metso IPS and Metso MHC™ hydrocyclone, in circuit with a VPX filter, results in less use of chemicals and energy in the dewatering process, on top of water recoveries of up to 90% in some applications. This is achieved by controlling the feed and optimising the filtration process. “We simply separate the stream into fine and coarse streams by using Metso MHC hydrocyclones,” Hällevall says, explaining that the overflow – the fines stream – is directed to the Metso IPS thickener, with the coarse stream going direct to the filter.

With two separate streams, the company can decide the optimum way to filter and dewater the material, with the IPC, in particular, offering the most “superior setting of fines using minimum amounts of flocculants and energy”, Hällevall says.

This new concept has allowed Metso to become one of only a few mining OEMs talking up the use of pressure filters – and accompanying separation and thickening infrastructure – to reprocess legacy tailings dams. The ability to “turn waste into value” could enable mining companies to not only clean up these dams, decrease their footprint and improve their sustainability credentials with local and other stakeholders, it could also allow them to generate additional revenue from the recovery of valuable minerals and metals.

This could potentially provide the positive investment case miners need to start making wet tailings dams a thing of the past.

Just 5% of all fresh tailings generated in 2018 were dewatered in some way, according to Metso’s data. With its own “future-ready” solution now in place, the company is doing its bit for industry to ensure this figure continues to rise.

Metso launches VPX filter as part of new tailings management approach

Metso says its new approach to tailings management is aimed at addressing the water conservation and responsible mine reclamation requirements that are becoming increasingly important for mines to ensure they can retain their social license to operate.

Its new approach is spearheaded by the launch of the new Metso VPX™ filter for tailings dewatering, which, with an operating pressure of up to 25 bars, can deal with difficult-to-dewater tailings.

The company’s broader tailings management concept is geared towards enabling and supporting environmentally and economically sustainable mining, it said.

Victor Tapia, President, Mining Equipment business area at Metso, said: “Our ambition is to challenge the conventional way of looking at tailings management in mining.

“In practice, this means that besides environmental and regulatory concerns related to tailings, we need to improve the conservation of water, chemicals and ore, as well as looking for opportunities to reprocess tailings and generate value by extracting any remaining minerals. Ultimately, it allows transforming legacy practices in tailings management into a new, positive value creation model.”

Metso is driving this change by introducing a new concept for the dewatering, handling and reprocessing of tailings. It said: “Designed to maximise water recovery and reduce the footprint of tailings dams or eliminate them completely, Metso Tailings Management Solutions provide a long-term solution for mining companies looking for a viable approach to their tailings management and end-of-mine strategies.”

There are a huge amount of tailings discharged and lying in legacy dams, according to Metso. “Today, only about 5% of tailings are dewatered, while roughly 70% of the mines are located in countries where water scarcity is considered as an issue. The way tailings are handled can have a long-term impact on the mines’ economic efficiency as well as on the well-being of the surrounding environment and communities,” the company said.

Niclas Hällevall, VP of Beneficiation Solutions, Mining Equipment business area, said: “Metso views dry filtered tailings as the most viable and long-term solution for tailings management: it helps in recycling significantly more water to the concentrator, while enabling mines to reduce their freshwater footprint when compared to traditional tailings impoundments. Furthermore, the risk of tailings dam failure could be completely avoided by dewatering and dry stacking the tailings.”

He added: “Contrary to conventional belief, dry tailings are also much more capex (capital expenses) and opex (operating expenses) efficient compared to wet or thickened tailings.”

Metso Tailings Management Solutions bundle Metso’s beneficiation technologies into a “full, customisable and future-ready suite of solutions”, it says. Metso, with its core component, is taking filtration technology “to the next level” by introducing the Metso VPX filter, a new generation filtration solution for maximum water recovery and reuse, it said.

The company said: “The Metso VPX filter can handle difficult-to-dewater tailings, because it has up to 25 bars operating pressure, the highest pressure in its category. This enables up to 90% water recovery. The Metso VPX is also equipped with a fully electromechanical drive system and no hydraulics, making it the safest solution on the market. With its modular design, the Metso VPX filter is scalable as well as easily transportable to the site in standard containers.”

The VPX filter is available for mining customers globally and an ideal solution for a range of dewatering applications, Metso said, adding that the filter press will be on show at the Exposibram trade fair to be held in Brazil, in September.