Enhancing mineral recovery through real-time flotation advisories

Abstract:

Flotation circuits are often faced with feed variation and stability challenges, resulting in suboptimal grade and recovery. Operational advisories (available as online dashboards) enable detection and early intervention of sub-optimal flotation conditions. The design and implementation of such flotation advisories across four operations is discussed in this work. Firstly, correlations between froth states (derived from froth sensor data, e.g., below lip, normal flow) and process key performance indicators (KPIs) were established. Secondly, automated froth advisories to improve froth states and therefore overall performance were derived. Flotation advisories track froth states to detect the worst performing cells, analyse process data to diagnose root causes, and generate actionable advisories – highlighting only priority issues. Correlation between different froth states and process KPIs were observed, e.g., a potential upgradation increase of 1.2 (phosphate operation).