Abstract
Mining energy consumption contributes to operational costs, to greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, and occurs at all stages of the ore recovery process: blasting, excavation, crushing, transport, grinding, concentration and tailings. Due to importance of a more sustainable mining operation, reduction of specific energy consumption has acquired significant attention in the industry and effective mitigation actions are required.
About 50% of all mine site energy is consumed in crushing and grinding processes where the efficiency is very low caused by the high variability between mine ore hardness, size distribution in feeding these process and energy dissipation as heat in the rock. This work highlights the importance of incorporating optimization and digitalization solutions in the crushing and grinding circuits to help operations to reduce specific energy consumption, maximize production rate and achieve higher levels of autonomy.
Andritz unique Advanced Process Control (APC) and optimization solutions have been deployed globally on various crushers, SAG mills and ball mill operations with throughput increase of 6.7%, and specific energy consumption reduction up to 7.6%. The technology fulfils the performance conditions necessary to improve profitability and sustainability on crushing and grinding circuits operations.