3643
Integrated Flotation Plant Design: Involving Mechanical and
Non-Mechanical Cells
Barun Gorain
Ore2Metal Inc., Toronto, Canada
ABSTRACT: The traditional approach to flotation scale-up and plant design has several limitations, especially
in dealing with the increasing complexity in the processing of lower grade ore bodies. Despite the challenges, it
is often difficult to discard the traditional approach, as many design engineers still rely on scale-up factors that
are based on the prior art of designing plants suited to higher grade and less complex ore bodies. With the advent
of the new generation of non-mechanical flotation machines along with various newer challenges including
more complex mineralogy and the need for non-conventional water sources, the kinetics-based models used for
scale-up could often be inadequate in quantifying the intricate flotation behavior of these ores. In addition, the
estimation of parameters for some of the advanced models requires highly sophisticated tools and techniques
along with elaborate plant studies that are costly and time-consuming, thus rendering them impractical in
many cases. Since there is limited availability of benchmarking information of different complex kinetics-based
parameters, often without any direct relevance to the process, posing significant risks in their use in plant design
and for circuit optimization purposes.
All these challenges with plant design have prompted Ore2Metal and its partners to focus on developing an
integrated approach based on scientific rigor with an aim to reduce risks associated with plant design for com-
plex and capital-intensive projects. An alternative approach to flotation scale-up and plant design has been
developed and validated for several greenfield and brownfield projects. This approach integrates three different
techniques viz. the traditional kinetics, advanced modelling &simulation route and the non-kinetics based
method. This also allows cross-validation between the three techniques, and any major deviations in the design
outcomes can lead to better introspection and insight, finally resulting in a high-confidence plant design, espe-
cially for complex ore bodies where there is no precedence or limited benchmarking. A brief overview of this
integrated plant design approach is presented in this paper.
Keywords: Flotation modeling, Integrated flotation plant design, Flotation optimization, Flotation scale-up,
Mechanical flotation cells, Non-mechanical flotation cells
INTRODUCTION
The conventional approach to designing flotation circuits
focuses on the use of safety factors in scaling-up residence
time obtained from bench scale test work to full-scale plant.
Typically the safety factors range from two to four, depend-
ing on ore type, personal preferences and inventive guess-
work (Gorain &Stradling, 2002 Coleman et al, 2004
Sandoval et al, 2014 Harbort &Quan, 2017). There is no
Integrated Flotation Plant Design: Involving Mechanical and
Non-Mechanical Cells
Barun Gorain
Ore2Metal Inc., Toronto, Canada
ABSTRACT: The traditional approach to flotation scale-up and plant design has several limitations, especially
in dealing with the increasing complexity in the processing of lower grade ore bodies. Despite the challenges, it
is often difficult to discard the traditional approach, as many design engineers still rely on scale-up factors that
are based on the prior art of designing plants suited to higher grade and less complex ore bodies. With the advent
of the new generation of non-mechanical flotation machines along with various newer challenges including
more complex mineralogy and the need for non-conventional water sources, the kinetics-based models used for
scale-up could often be inadequate in quantifying the intricate flotation behavior of these ores. In addition, the
estimation of parameters for some of the advanced models requires highly sophisticated tools and techniques
along with elaborate plant studies that are costly and time-consuming, thus rendering them impractical in
many cases. Since there is limited availability of benchmarking information of different complex kinetics-based
parameters, often without any direct relevance to the process, posing significant risks in their use in plant design
and for circuit optimization purposes.
All these challenges with plant design have prompted Ore2Metal and its partners to focus on developing an
integrated approach based on scientific rigor with an aim to reduce risks associated with plant design for com-
plex and capital-intensive projects. An alternative approach to flotation scale-up and plant design has been
developed and validated for several greenfield and brownfield projects. This approach integrates three different
techniques viz. the traditional kinetics, advanced modelling &simulation route and the non-kinetics based
method. This also allows cross-validation between the three techniques, and any major deviations in the design
outcomes can lead to better introspection and insight, finally resulting in a high-confidence plant design, espe-
cially for complex ore bodies where there is no precedence or limited benchmarking. A brief overview of this
integrated plant design approach is presented in this paper.
Keywords: Flotation modeling, Integrated flotation plant design, Flotation optimization, Flotation scale-up,
Mechanical flotation cells, Non-mechanical flotation cells
INTRODUCTION
The conventional approach to designing flotation circuits
focuses on the use of safety factors in scaling-up residence
time obtained from bench scale test work to full-scale plant.
Typically the safety factors range from two to four, depend-
ing on ore type, personal preferences and inventive guess-
work (Gorain &Stradling, 2002 Coleman et al, 2004
Sandoval et al, 2014 Harbort &Quan, 2017). There is no