*P. Pearce, C. Gagnon, B. Klein, R. McIvor, S. Makni, F. Wang, A. Kumar
SAG Conference Vancouver, Canada September 22 – 26, 2019
ABSTRACT
The aim of the Crush It! Challenge is to accelerate transformative solutions to reduce energy usage in the mill. Natural Resources Canada supported competition for innovative energy-efficient comminution with a contribution of $10 million. In total, 65 proposals were submitted from which 12 were selected as semi-finalists and 6 were subsequently selected as finalists by an external Challenge Jury. Each finalist is eligible to receive up to Cdn$800,000 to advance their concepts that will be judged in December 2020 when one will be selected and award Cdn$5 million for advancement toward commercialization. This paper profiles one of the six shortlisted proposals titled “Development of a Novel HPGR and Size Classification Comminution Circuit to Replace Ball Mills”.
Wet ball milling in closed circuit with hydrocyclones exclusively fills the role of the final stage of comminution before the mineral separation circuit in the minerals industry. This includes those recently constructed plants that use Crushing-HPGR-Ball Milling as an alternative to the most common SAG-Ball Milling circuit. The premise of this work is that high-pressure grinding rolls (HPGR), in closed-circuit with some form of classification/dewatering, can effectively replace ball milling in the final grinding step ahead of mineral separation.
Keywords
Energy efficiency, high pressure grinding roll, HPGR, size classification
AUTHORS
1. Natural Resources Canada
2. Corem1180, rue de la Mineralogie Quebec City, Quebec, G1N 1X7
3. University of British Columbia517-6350 Stores RdVancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4
(*Corresponding author: