XXXI International Mineral Processing Congress 2024 Proceedings/Washington, DC/Sep 29–Oct 3 623
produce a copper concentrate. The ore is considered to be
moderately competent and hard. Rougher flotation is con-
ducted at a target grind size (P80) of 150 microns and a
regrind to (P80) 30 microns for cleaning stages of flotation.
Flotation tailings is pumped to a conventional wet tailing
storage facility. The base case flowsheet with conventional
technologies and processes is presented in Figure 1.
PROPOSED FUTURE FLOWSHEET
With the objective of reducing water usage and energy con-
sumption, the proposed flowsheet of the future includes
Bulk Ore Sorting, Particle Sorting, HPGR Comminution,
Coarse Stirred Mill Grinding, Coarse Particle Flotation
with Water Recycle, Regrind Stirred Milling and Cleaning
Flotation. To maximize water recovery for re-use, the tail-
ings are thickened and filtered generating physically stable
tailings. The flowsheet of the future is presented in Figure 2.
The following describes each of the processing stages and
assumptions that are based primarily on testing with the
supplied copper ores at UBC.
The conceptual plant is comprised of the following
circuits:
Bulk Ore Sorting
Bulk ore sorting (BOS), as a pre-concentration technology,
integrates grade-measuring sensors with material handling
equipment and can reject significant amounts of low-
grade run-of-mine material ahead of energy-intensive and
expensive downstream processes. Benefits can be obtained,
including less energy and water consumption (proportional
to amount of rock rejected), reduced tailings production
and environmental footprint, and improved mine eco-
nomics and sustainability of mining industry (Klein and
Bamber, 2019).
For the proposed future flowsheet, BOS classified the
material into high-grade, low-grade (marginal) and waste
streams based on a flowsheet proposed by Nadolski (2018)
and the economics assessment by Li et al. (2019, 2021)
that showed the effect of BOS on cut-off grade. The pro-
posed bulk ore sorting technology is the ShovelSense® sys-
tem developed by MineSense Technologies Ltd. The system
consists of XRF sensors installed in the shovel’s and buck-
ets, allowing them to measure the grade at the face of the
mine. The grade monitoring at the shovel scale allows for
sorting the ore and waste at the truck scale (Pamparana and
Lang, 2023). The ShovelSense system was considered for
recovering ore from waste and to reject waste from ore.
For the proposed study, it was considered that 18% of
the waste could be reclassified as ore, and 12% of the ore
could be reclassified as waste. These numbers vary greatly
from deposit to deposit, depending on the rock’s hetero-
geneity. For the 100,000 tpd of mined waste, 12,000 tpd
was classified as ore. Of the 50,000 tpd of ore, 9,000 tpd
was classified as waste, avoiding feeding dilution to the pro-
cessing. By applying BOS, the amount of ore to be further
processed increased by 3,000 tpd (6% increase compared to
base case) and the average copper grade of the mined mate-
rial was increased from 0.30% Cu to 0.36%.
Figure 2. Proposed future flowsheet
produce a copper concentrate. The ore is considered to be
moderately competent and hard. Rougher flotation is con-
ducted at a target grind size (P80) of 150 microns and a
regrind to (P80) 30 microns for cleaning stages of flotation.
Flotation tailings is pumped to a conventional wet tailing
storage facility. The base case flowsheet with conventional
technologies and processes is presented in Figure 1.
PROPOSED FUTURE FLOWSHEET
With the objective of reducing water usage and energy con-
sumption, the proposed flowsheet of the future includes
Bulk Ore Sorting, Particle Sorting, HPGR Comminution,
Coarse Stirred Mill Grinding, Coarse Particle Flotation
with Water Recycle, Regrind Stirred Milling and Cleaning
Flotation. To maximize water recovery for re-use, the tail-
ings are thickened and filtered generating physically stable
tailings. The flowsheet of the future is presented in Figure 2.
The following describes each of the processing stages and
assumptions that are based primarily on testing with the
supplied copper ores at UBC.
The conceptual plant is comprised of the following
circuits:
Bulk Ore Sorting
Bulk ore sorting (BOS), as a pre-concentration technology,
integrates grade-measuring sensors with material handling
equipment and can reject significant amounts of low-
grade run-of-mine material ahead of energy-intensive and
expensive downstream processes. Benefits can be obtained,
including less energy and water consumption (proportional
to amount of rock rejected), reduced tailings production
and environmental footprint, and improved mine eco-
nomics and sustainability of mining industry (Klein and
Bamber, 2019).
For the proposed future flowsheet, BOS classified the
material into high-grade, low-grade (marginal) and waste
streams based on a flowsheet proposed by Nadolski (2018)
and the economics assessment by Li et al. (2019, 2021)
that showed the effect of BOS on cut-off grade. The pro-
posed bulk ore sorting technology is the ShovelSense® sys-
tem developed by MineSense Technologies Ltd. The system
consists of XRF sensors installed in the shovel’s and buck-
ets, allowing them to measure the grade at the face of the
mine. The grade monitoring at the shovel scale allows for
sorting the ore and waste at the truck scale (Pamparana and
Lang, 2023). The ShovelSense system was considered for
recovering ore from waste and to reject waste from ore.
For the proposed study, it was considered that 18% of
the waste could be reclassified as ore, and 12% of the ore
could be reclassified as waste. These numbers vary greatly
from deposit to deposit, depending on the rock’s hetero-
geneity. For the 100,000 tpd of mined waste, 12,000 tpd
was classified as ore. Of the 50,000 tpd of ore, 9,000 tpd
was classified as waste, avoiding feeding dilution to the pro-
cessing. By applying BOS, the amount of ore to be further
processed increased by 3,000 tpd (6% increase compared to
base case) and the average copper grade of the mined mate-
rial was increased from 0.30% Cu to 0.36%.
Figure 2. Proposed future flowsheet