Abstract
Mining is one of the most energy-intensive industries, constituting more than 10% of global energy consumption. Mining engineers constantly seek new alternatives to replace traditional mining methods to facilitate mine-to-mill operations and achieve more sustainable mining. These efforts are made to reduce energy consumption in mines and prevent issues associated with conventional methods, such as environmental destruction, pollution, carbon emission, and safety hazards. Microwave treatment is one of the promising methods which has shown potential for field application. This study uses three experimental setups (fracture toughness, uniaxial compressive strength, and single roller crusher) to evaluate the behavior of rock samples before and after microwave treatment under different loading conditions. The rock samples are treated with different microwave powers and exposure times. The data analysis is done with an energy-based approach to evaluate the efficiency of the methodology in the field applications. The results show that increasing the microwave energy dosage decreases the fracture toughness, uniaxial compressive strength, and crushing energy values. However, in most cases, the energy efficiency of the treatment decreases as the energy dosage increases, emphasizing the importance of optimizing the microwave energy dosage in different operations. In some cases, increasing the energy dosage can reduce the efficiency of the method by more than 50%. Testing the rock samples under different loading conditions and experimental setups showcases the application of microwave treatment in different mine-to-mill operations.