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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GRAVITY SEPARATION one of the most widely recognized and accepted brands in the minerals industry continues to thrive. Doug Corsan, FLSmidth Knelson's global product director, told E&MJ;: "Over the past 18 months we've made tremendous strides in the on-going development of our application-based CONE*Logic™ con- centrate cone-selection system. This enables us to work with our clients to assess their specific metallurgical needs and operating conditions, to tailor a con- centrate cone solution that is precisely to their requirements. "We began development of the CONE*Logic system in 2003, and over the past nine years we have worked closely with many of our clients to devise a method of cone selection that looks at five fundamental factors of operation. These include mineralogical test data, target particle size and shape, circuit water constraints, water quality and ore abrasivity," Corsan added. As part of its development of the Gekko Systems has supplied a Python processing train to Gold Fields for recovering gold from surface waste dumps at an operation in South Africa. that there appears to be a strong corre- lation between gaps in training and the efficiency experienced at the mine. Commissioning time, post-commission- ing and optimization are pivotal to a sys- tem's success, he went on, with Gekko now offering operating contracts to assist in the optimization of plant instal- lation and production ramp-up. Gekko says that in general with the IPJ, the fine-tuning of cut points has been managed through the develop- ment of new ragging material. While parameters traditionally used to control the cut point in a jig include the upflow of water and pulse rate of the unit, in the IPJ the internal ragging performs this function. Instead of using naturally occurring ragging materials, which are essentially uncontrollable, the company has developed ragging made from spherical, metal-filled polymer balls, and defines the separation cut-point by changing the density and size of the balls. As well as increasing the effi- ciency and reliability of the process, controlling the ragging density and con- sistency in this way enables it to pre- dict outcomes accurately. New control systems provide very accurate and repeatable control of all the IPJ's operating parameters, such as www.e-mj.com the number of cycles per minute, down- stroke speed and length of stroke, and will have a significant impact on achiev- ing repeatable results and making on- line changes to the unit, Gekko adds. Asked about improvements that could be made to current technology that would not require significant investment to provide a noticeable return, Gray replied that there are two key areas, the first of which is using fine crushing to produce the right prod- uct to feed gravity-separation systems. The second is fine gravity separation and continuous units to handle high tonnage of fine material, he went on, pointing out that this is a large R&D; area where investment is required. "We need to consider gravity separation as a primary technology rather than a sec- ondary area to allow for significant return and improvements," he said. FLSmidth Develops Knelson In September 2011, FLSmidth bought Knelson, the Canadian company that had—through its concentrator designs— established itself as a world leader in gravity-separation technology, with over 3,000 installations in more than 70 countries. Since then, FLSmidth reports, the innovative spirit that made Knelson industry's first fully customized con- centrate cone solution, the company has developed a new cone manufactur- ing platform called the Matrix Cone. During extensive field testing over the past three years, it says, the Matrix Cone has proved to provide superior metallurgical recovery, along with extended cone-cleaning intervals on average by a factor of five times, while at the same time reducing operating and maintenance costs. FLSmidth says its Matrix Cone concept, shown here in cutaway view, reduces operating and maintenance costs. NOVEMBER 2012 • E&MJ; 57