Engineering & Mining Journal

JUN 2016

Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr

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HIGHFIELD RESOURCES 48 E&MJ; • JUNE 2016 www.e-mj.com A global leader in bulk handling equipment has introduced an innovative technology that uses the kinetic energy from a moving conveyor belt to generate enough power to run a wide variety of electronic systems. The Martin ® Roll Gener- ator™ is designed to create a self contained mini power station that allows operators to run electrical monitoring systems and safety mech- anisms. Able to be retroftted on existing idler support structures, the new design is a step toward eliminating power production obstacles as conveyors move into the next generation of "smart systems" that are more autonomous and sustainable. Running auxiliary power can be both com- plicated and costly, requiring expensive labor and oversized cables to accommodate the in- evitable voltage drop over long runs, as well as transformers, conduit, junction boxes and oth- er components. In many operations, this lack of available power means that any monitoring of the conveyor must be done by technicians physically walking the length of the structure, which can be a diffcult and time-consuming task when the systems are long and span diff - cult terrain. A more effcient approach is to employ sen- sors to transmit important data from remote points to a central location where it can be monitored in real time and recorded for later analysis. "We found that we could draw energy from a moving belt by attaching an independent generator directly to one of the rollers," said Paul Harrison, Global Engineering Manager. "This way, the conveyor could produce power without altering the structure of the system or affecting its physical confguration." The roll generator is held in a fxed position by the roll support system, but is not normal- ly required to bear any of the material load. The unit is sealed from fugitive material and forms an integral unit independent of the con- veyor roll. All components to 'condition' the power to a steady 24VDC are enclosed in a protective cabinet, typically mounted directly on the idler support slide. The capability to store power in a small battery bank is already in development, allowing the generator to produce 5-10x high- er amperage for short periods to power high- er-wattage devices. New Technology Generates Power Using Conveyor Belt Kinetic Energy COMPANY PROFILE-PAID ADVERTISEMENT a series of detailed metallurgical test work programs. They discovered that the ore, in gen- eral, exhibited a positive metallurgical response, with a clear advantage for the banded ores over the brecciated ores. The consultants also confrmed the metallur- gical properties of the Muga ore lends itself to a simple, proven process fow sheet, which has been successfully im- plemented at many operations globally. The metallurgical recovery process is based on ore characterization. The geo- chemical composition of the Muga ore includes magnesium and some insoluble content. Highfeld expects the recovery rate to range between 90.6% for the purely banded sylvinite ore to 79% for purely brecciated ore. The weighted av- erage recovery, according to the current DFS, is 88.3% potassium chloride (KCl) or potash. "The Ebro Basin ore is not Saskatche- wan grade ore," Schlumpberger said. "It has a lower grade, similar to the potash that's mined by Belaruskali or K+S. It is a dirtier sylvinite ore that does not have as high of a KCl/K 2 O factor, so we had to en- gineer the processing plant accordingly. The Muga processing plant will use a two stage crushing process, attrition scrubbing and hydrocyclone de-sliming stage followed by a KCl froth fotation circuit (See Figure 3). "A Canadian en- gineering frm with potash experience has performed the basic engineering for the layout of the processing plant and we are currently working on the detailed engi- neering plan," Schlumpberger said. "It's a fairly standard confguration with crush- ing, fotation, regrind circuits, scavenger circuits and cleaner-tailings circuits. The RoM ore is crushed with dry grind- ing followed by wet grinding and fed to attrition cells. After the attrition cells, the slurry reports to a series of cyclones to remove the clays. The coarse material passing the cyclones reports to fotation (rougher and cleaning). The foat reports to the drying circuit, while the undersize is rescreened and processed through scavenger fotation cells. The undersize from the cyclones fows to the thickener where the undersize material reports to a fnes fotation and drying. The slimes are fltered and report to the tailings stream. "Both the product and tailings are dewatering using centrif- ugal dryers," Schlumpberger. "After the centrifuges, the product is dried using fuid bed dryers and then conveyed to a compacting and glazing facility for con- version from standard MoP to GMoP." After drying, compacting and glaz- ing, the product reports to GMoP storage where a de-dusting oil will be applied in a set of trammels. The product is then transported to the loadout facility. "One of the nice things about this operation is that we will recover brine that helps with recovery," Schlumpberger said. "A potash operation wants saturated brine in its process. We are going to re- cover brine from the decline, the tailings storage facility (TSF), and the process recovery areas; all of these areas will help us achieve saturated brine. Anytime you introduce fresh water into a potash operation, you lose recovery. We want to

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