Abstract
The reduction of environmental impact and foot print is an essential for mining projects. This can be significantly decreased with the use of ore sorting technology and pre concentration.
Mines have conventionally been designed to process ore directly from a mine to a concentrator in order to produce a salable product. Pre concentration can be utilized as an intermediate step between the mine and concentrator. Low quality waste will be rejected during the pre-concentration stage which will reduce the mass of ore to be processed in the concentrator. Down stream benefits include reduction of overall concentrator size, reduced power consumption and reduced reagent use. The size of final tails storage facility will also be substantially smaller.
This paper will demonstrate the effective incorporation of pre concentration and ore sorting at the Cygnus Metals Hub and Spoke Project in Chibougamau Quebec. This study focuses on the tradeoffs and benefits of total emissions, power consumption, impacted areas and social acceptability.