The Versatility of Stirred Milling in Innovative Comminution FlowsheetsThe Versatility of Stirred Milling in Innovative Comminution Flowsheets
*B. Foggiatto1, H. Mclver1, G. Ballantyne1, P. Thorn², A. Paz², & E. Zhmarin²
¹ Ausenco Services Pty LtdLevel 6, 189 Grey Street, South Brisbane QLD 4101
² Swiss Tower Mills Minerals AG Haselstrasse 1, 5400 Baden, Switzerland
(*Corresponding author:
*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: Stirred milling technology is used extensively in regrinding duties due to its ability to deliver improved energy efficiency and produce narrower particle size distributions when compared to ball mills. Increasingly, stirred mills are also being installed in coarser feed duties. Recent developments in stirred milling technologies have resulted in larger mill shells and higher installed power per unit. These mechanical upgrades include provisions for coarser feed sizes and allow for the use of larger media, thus improving efficiency in these applications.This paper details the improvements that Swiss Tower Mills (STM) have incorporated in their mill design for coarser feed applications (Fso >200 µm) and provides examples of flowsheets that illustrate the versatility of vertical stirred mills in three case studies:1. Installing a Coarse Particle Flotation (CPF) circuit with concentrate milling to debottleneck a brownfield grinding circuit by coarsening the grind size.2. Adding a new grinding circuit that includes energy-efficient technologies (High Pressure Grinding Rolls [HPGR) and stirred milling), providing additional capacity to an existing gold processing plant.3. Secondary grinding of a magnetic separator concentrate with large throughput variations requiring large media for improved energy efficiency and ability to rapidly adjust power draw.
Keywords: Stirred milling, coarse feed application