Geometallurgical Programs – Critical Evaluation Programs of – Critical Viktor Lishchuk Geometallurgical Applied Methods and Techniques
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LICENTIATE T H E SIS Viktor Lishchuk Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering Division of Minerals and Metallurgical Engineering ISSN 1402-1757 Geometallurgical Programs – Critical ISBN 978-91-7583-636-2 (print) Geometallurgical Programs – Critical Evaluation of Applied Methods and Techniques Applied Methods and Geometallurgical – Critical of Programs Evaluation ISBN 978-91-7583-637-9 (pdf) Evaluation of Applied Methods and Techniques Luleå University of Technology 2016 Viktor Lishchuk Mineral Processing Geometallurgical programs – critical evaluation of applied methods and techniques PREP Viktor Lishchuk Division of Minerals and Metallurgical Engineering (MiMeR) Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering Luleå University of Technology SE-971 87 Luleå Sweden Supervisors: Pertti Lamberg and Cecilia Lund Luleå University of Technology Printed by Luleå University of Technology, Graphic Production 2016 ISSN 1402-1757 ISBN 978-91-7583-636-2 (print) ISBN 978-91-7583-637-9 (pdf) Luleå 2016 www.ltu.se ABSTRACT Geometallurgy is a team-based multidisciplinary approach aimed at integrating geological, mineralogical and metallurgical information and yielding a spatial quantitative predictive model for production management. Production management includes forecast, control and optimization of the product quality (concentrates and tailings) and metallurgical performance (e.g. recoveries and throughput); and minimization of the environmental impact. Favourable characteristics of an ore body calling for geometallurgical model are high variability, low mineral grades, complex mineralogy and several alternative processing routes or beneficiation methods. Industrial application of geometallurgy is called a geometallurgical program. This study undertook a critical review and evaluation of methods and techniques used in geometallurgical programs. This evaluation aimed at defining how geometallurgical program should be carried out for different kinds of ore bodies. Methods applied here were an industry survey (questionnaire) along with development and use of a synthetic ore body build-up of geometallurgical modules. Survey on geometallurgical programs included fifty two case studies from both industry professionals and comprehensive literature studies. Focus in the survey was on answering why and how geometallurgical programs are built. This resulted in a two-dimensional classification system where geometallurgical program depth of application was presented in six levels. Geometallurgical methods and techniques were summarised accordingly under three approaches: traditional, proxy and mineralogical. Through the classification it was established that due to similar geometallurgical reasoning and methodologies the deposit and process data could be organized in a common way. Thus, a uniform data structure (Papers I, II) was proposed. Traditionally the scientific development in geometallurgy takes place through case studies. This is slow and results are often confidential. Therefore, an alternative way is needed; here a synthetic testing framework for geometallurgy was established and used as such alternative. The synthetic testing framework for geometallurgy consists of synthetic ore body and a mineral processing circuit. The generated digital ore body of a kind is sampled through a synthetic sampling module, followed by chemical and mineralogical analyses, and by geometallurgical and metallurgical testing conducted in a synthetic laboratory. The synthetic testing framework aims at being so realistic that an expert could not identify it from a true one while studying data it offers. Important and unique aspect here is that the geological ore body model is based on minerals. This means that synthetic ore body has full mineralogical composition and properties information at any point of the ore body. This makes it possible to run different characterisation techniques in synthetic analysis laboratory. The first framework built was based on Malmberget iron ore mine (LKAB). Two aspects were studied: sampling density required for a geometallurgical program and difference in the prediction capabilities between different geometallurgical approaches. As a result of applying synthetic testing framework, it was confirmed that metallurgical approach presents clear advantage in product quality prediction for production planning purposes. Another conclusion was that optimising the production based solely on head grade without application of variability in the processing properties gives significantly less reliable forecast and optimisation information for the mining value chain. For the iron ore case study it was concluded that the number of samples required for a geometallurgical program must vary based on the parameters to be forecasted. Reliable recovery model could be established based on some tens of samples whereas the reliable concentrate quality prediction (e.g metal i grade, penalty elements) required more than 100 samples. In the latter the mineralogical approach proved to be significantly better in the quality of prediction in comparison to the traditional approach based on elemental grades. Model based on proxy approach could forecast well the response in magnetic separation performance with the help of Davis tube test. But the lack of geometallurgical test for flotation and gravity separation caused that in total the proxy approach forecast capability was worse than in mineralogical approach. This study is a part of a larger research program, PREP (Primary resource efficiency by enhanced prediction), and the results will be applied to on-going industrial case studies. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisors for their support and inspiration. Professor Pertti Lamberg was the reason and main motivation for me to come to Luleå and he sparked my interest in geometallurgy with his incredible energetic passion. Cecilia Lund, you have guided me through the darkest spots in geology; and nobody else could have done it better than you. This study is a part of PREP project funded by VINNOVA SIO STRIM, Strategic innovation program for mining and metallurgical industry. I am truly grateful for funding and support from VINNOVA SIO STRIM, Boliden, LKAB, Zinkgruvan Mine of Lundin Mining and Outotec. A special thanks to all the nice and supportive people from LKAB: Lewis Wild, Therese Lindberg, Kari Niiranen, Mattias Gustafsson, Monika Sammelin; Boliden: Sofia Höglund; Lundin Mining: Anders Gustafsson and Outotec. Moreover, I would like to thank my colleagues at the department for a fruitful discussions and moral support. Mehdi Parian, thank you for your scientific and personal support. Pierre-Henri Koch, thank you for the great time we had together in the lab and at the mines. Abdul Mwanga, thank you for the enlightening about grinding. Ulf Nordström and Bertil Pålsson, thank you for useful pieces of advice on laboratory work. Anders Sand, thank you for support in external activities. I would also like to thank to my family for believing in me. My dearest wife Valentina, thank you for being with me through all the challenging moments. You are the light which shows me direction where to go. iii LIST OF PAPERS This licentiate thesis “Geometallurgical programs – critical evaluation of applied methods and techniques” consists of the following manuscripts and is hereafter referred to: Peer reviewed conference paper published in a journal: - Lishchuk, V., Koch, P.-H., Lund, C., Lamberg, P., 2015a. The geometallurgical framework. Malmberget and Mikheevskoye case studies. Min. Sci. 22, 57–66. (Paper 1) Included peer reviewed conference paper: - Lishchuk, V., Lamberg, P., Lund, C., 2015b. Classification of geometallurgical programs based on approach and purpose, in: 13th Biennial SGA Meeting. Mineral Resources in a Sustainable World. Volume 4. Nancy, pp. 1431–1434. (Paper 2) Not included peer reviewed conference papers: - Lishchuk, V., Lund, C., Lamberg, P., 2016b. Development of a synthetic ore deposit model for geometallurgy. third Ausimm Int. Geometallurgy Conf. 1–30. (accepted) - Lishchuk, V., Lamberg, P., Lund, C., 2016a. Evaluation of sampling in geometallurgical programs through, in: IMPC2016. (accepted) Project reports: - Lishchuk, V., Lamberg, P., Lund, C., Parian, M., 2015c. Technical report: Data models for organzing the geological data in a common structure. PREP:WP1:T1:1.F. Luleå. TOOLS DEVELOPED WITHIN THIS WORK SYNTHETIC ORE BODY is modelling and simulation software in Matlab for generating synthetic geometallurgical data. iv CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 1 1.1 Aim .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Working hypothesis .................................................................................................. 2 1.3 Objectives................................................................................................................. 2 1.4 Literature review ...................................................................................................... 4 1.4.1 Geometallurgy...................................................................................................... 4 1.4.2 Geometallurgical programs ................................................................................... 5 a. Geological data ........................................................................................ 6