Development of Fine High-Pressure Grinding for Mineral Processing Plants

Development of Fine High-Pressure Grinding for Mineral Processing Plants

*Robert McIvor1, Claude Gagnon1, Bern Klein2, & Amit Kumar2

1. Corem 1180 rue de la Mineralogie Quebec City, Quebec, Canada G1N 1 X7
2. University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z4

(*Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

*This paper was presented at SAG Conference held 24-28 September 2023 in Vancouver, Canada. To view the full paper select download file below. 

Abstract
Foretelling the obsolescence of wet ball milling, Corem and the University of British Columbia collaborated with two processing plants and multiple equipment manufacturers to develop, and pilot-plant test, its replacement with high-pressure grinding. They succeeded in demonstrating industrial readiness with circuit equipment that is all widely used today. The Functional Performance Equation revealed enormous synergy between classification and compression zone grinding performances, contributing to the reduction of total circuit energy usage and projected operating costs by over half. This paper presents the work leading to the discovery of the exceptional efficiency of high-pressure grinding in this role.

Keywords: Fine high-pressure grinding, wet secondary grinding, mineral separation circuit feed grinding/preparation