Together with an international scientific team, SMI Chile researcher Nathalie Jamett has published a paper in the journal Minerals Engineering, proposing an approach to optimise water management in the flotation circuit of a concentrator plant.
In this international journal, which focuses on innovation and advances in mineral processing and extractive metallurgy, authors Luis Cisternas, Israel Ponce-Lizarazu, Marinka Silva, Andrzej Kraslawski and Nathalie Jamett present their paper, entitled “Mitigating water quality deviations in recycled streams for concentration plants through the W-PIM/CP framework”. The paper proposes the incorporation and adaptation of a property-based integration methodology to optimise water management within the flotation circuit of a concentrator plant.
While water scarcity and environmental regulations have increased water recycling in mining operations, conventional water management is based on mass balances that do not account for changes in water quality in closed-loop systems. Recycled streams can accumulate physical and chemical impurities, while variations in their physical properties may affect the kinetics and selectivity of mineral separation processes.
This scientific work therefore addresses the challenge of incorporating water quality — which affects plant performance — into process management. It represents a step forward in optimising recycled water quality and reducing freshwater consumption in concentrator plant processing.
“The results show that a segregated water strategy,” the paper states, “can reduce freshwater use by up to 37% compared with a single tank or common process-water circuit, while maintaining an equivalent level of deviation from the target properties of the slurry.”
For further information, please see the full paper at the following link:
