DETERMINING WATER LOSS IN MINERAL PROCESSING - A THERMODYNAMIC APPROACH

With increasing competition for water resources and the potential impact on the environment, the mining industry’s focus as expanded to include water in addition to energy consumption. Motivated by this changing competitive context, the aim of this work is to examine quantifying water loss in mineral processing operations by leveraging thermodynamics. Based on previous work this paper opens with the definition of a general thermodynamic model of a unit process which is then applied to describe energy and mass inputs and outputs of different mineral processing equipment (ie SAG and ball mills, screens, sumps, flotation, thickeners, reservoirs). The models are then used to estimate the evaporation losses of a generic 50000t/d mineral processing plant as well as explore different equipment design avenues to reduce water loss. A subsequent discussion explores the limitations of the models used, the potential benefit of reducing evaporation as well as a defining a possible metric that could be used to assess the water loss potential of different equipment and circuits.