The Elephant in the Mill

Increasing the Energy Efficiency of Metals Production

Joe Pease

Xstrata Technology

Chief Executive – Xstrata Technology

© Copyright 2009 Xstrata Technology Pty Ltd

All rights reserved

This is a talk about energy efficiency in metal production.

And how some significant changes in energy efficiency can be found by using the tools we already have –
by looking at minerals in the right way, and combining existing tools in the right way.

But indulge me for a few moments while I digress on energy efficiency generally. I recall my first lecture
in Engineering at University of Queensland. It was an introductory subject called “Engineering in
Society”. I have to confess that at 18, I didn’t really know what engineers did – there were no engineers in
my family, and I didn’t hear about them at school or on TV. All I knew was that I liked maths and science.

I think our lecturer understood this, because he opened with a number of descriptions of what engineers do.
The one that struck me was “An engineer is someone who can do for 20 c what any fool can do for a
dollar”. I liked this.

But later in the same lecture he struck me in a different way. He argued that the GDP of countries, and the
welfare of citizens, was directly related to energy consumption. As an environmentally conscious citizen I
grappled with this, because I knew that our people often use energy and goods wastefully. But the
evidence seemed compelling – those countries with access to cheap power and the highest consumption
had the best living standards (and as I realised much later, usually better environmental management too).

But finally the penny dropped and I understood what engineers do. Society demands goods to increase
welfare. And yes, in a free society some people will use goods and energy wastefully. So the engineer’s
role is to produce the goods that a free society demands in the most efficient way possible. This is pretty
obvious stuff, but I confess it was a revelation to me at 18.

While engineers have always been committed to energy efficiency, it has now become a hot public topic.
The common term now is Carbon footprint , which isn’t quite the same thing as energy efficiency, but lets
not quibble. Because we can all agree that the best way to reduce Carbon footprint is to use less energy,
while still producing what society wants.

Hey, this is what engineers do! This is our time !

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The Tools for Energy Efficient Design

Quantitative Mineralogy

Laboratory Testing

New comminution
technologies Metal Thermodynamics

Numerical Simulation

Now, the high level of public interest means a high public support and lots of dollars for projects and research to
improve energy efficiency. But breakthoughs are becoming increasingly hard and expensive to find.

But what if we already have the tools to make some step changes. Can we make some just by using existing tools and
combining them in different ways. I think there are opportunities, and I will talk about one of them today. I think we
can significantly improve the energy efficiency of metals production by changing the way we design our plants and our
organisations.

In this example, the powerful tools we have are these : automated quantitative mineralogy, laboratory evaluation
(especially flotation tests), numerical simulation (especially grinding and classification), thermodynamics, new
comminution technologies (eg HPGR, inert stirred milling).

They are all wonderful tools. But we overuse some and underuse others. We don’t combine them in the right way to
get the best result.

I believe that in some cases we overuse or misuse quantitative mineralogy and numerical simulation. But we underuse
laboratory evaluation and new comminution technologies.

And as for thermodynamics – well the truth is, we don’t use that at all in mineral processing. And that’s the problem.

To explain what I mean we have to look at the minerals themselves.

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 Simplify use of Quantitative Mineralogy

My first point is about the use of quantitative mineralogy. Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong supporter of
quantitative mineralogy, it is one of our industries great achievements and a wonderful tool.

But too often I see it misused and overused. Too often we drown ourselves in data, and end up not seeing the
forest for the trees. We ask complex questions when we should ask simple questions.

First we must think how to look. The person interpreting mineralogy simply must be familiar with the daily
operations of the plant. Mineralogy is not a quantitative sledgehammer, it is a fine forensic tool.

Let me explain with photomicrograph of zinc concentrate. This is concentrate, yet it explains why there is
fine zinc in the tailings. You see, if I look at the tailings, I will see fine, liberated zinc. And I could draw the
conclusion that I have trouble floating fine particles. And then draw other wrong conclusions like : I need
different reagents, or a different flotation cell to float the fines. Or most likely, I am grinding too fine.

But in fact, if I want to know why I am losing fines in the tailings, I need to look at the concentrate first.
Look at the two particles arrowed. The one at the bottom is a composite particle of sphalerite and pyrite. It
has a good amount of exposed sphalerite surface, so it floats well, and is too valuable to throw out. Yet it
only assays 20% Zn, which is too low grade to accept into concentrate. The operator doesn’t like losing
recovery, but he is forbidden from making low grade concentrate. So he operates to circuit to reject these
particles – eg lots of depressant, not much collector.

But the conditions to reject this particle will also reject this fine liberated particle, as it has less zinc surface
area than the composite.

So the reason the fine zinc is in the tailings is because there are coarse composites in the concentrate. Just
crunching statistics on tailings mineralogy, and not accounting for how the operator runs the circuit, will give
us exactly the wrong conclusion. We don’t have a problem floating fines, and we aren’t grinding too fine :
in fact, the problem is, we aren’t grinding fine enough !

So my first point is, simplify our use of quantitative mineralogy.

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 More Testwork, less Simulation

Pentlandite in gangue

In another case, we were asked to consider the smelting of a nickel concentrate. Before trying to solve the
tough smelting problem, we asked the question : why is there so much MgO in concentrate? Magnesium is
a particularly difficult mineral in smelting – MgO has a high melting point and forms viscous slags. Recall
that magnesia is often a big component of furnace refractories and you will understand why it is tough to
smelt. Well the answer was, MgO didn’t have to be so high. Regrinding and good dilution cleaning makes
a significant increase in the grade/recovery curve, and lowers MgO content.

I will use the mineral shown here to illustrate the concept. The photo is taken from a published paper on
another Nickel operation. The dark mineral is the Nickel sulphide pentlandite, the light mineral is
serpentine (magnesium-containing gangue). In this case the metallurgists had done wonderful work with
circuit design, reagents and flotation cells to recover particles like this, and thereby increase Nickel
recovery. But particles like this would introduce significant MgO units to the smelter. Of course this one
mineral not statistically representative of the whole operation. But I will use it to illustrate some general
comments about grinding and flotation.
Firstly, if this mineral has floated, then there can be no problem floating fine particles. Imagine this
particle interacting with a bubble. Only a small surface area of pentlandite is exposed, but apparently that
is enough to float both the pentlandite and the huge gangue “anchor” that is attached to it. Imagine how
much easier it would be to float the fine if we could cut off the anchor.

Secondly, what does it tell us about flotation impellors, reagents, and flotation simulation ? To me it says
“Be very careful”. Frankly, I am not interested in simulating this particle. I want to change it.
What is the point of surveying the circuit and crunching numbers for months to predict how this particle
might behave if I configure the circuit differently, or use a different impellor, or even if I shuffle the deck
chairs. Because the simulation will be based on how this particle behaves now.
But if I can get rid of the anchor of gangue, expose more nickel surface, and make that surface clean, then
the pentlandite will behave completely differently – perhaps a tenfold increase in flotation rate – and the
gangue may not float at all. The model can’t tell us how the minerals will behave after grinding, but a
flotation test can.
Once again, don’t get me wrong. Modelling is a powerful tool. But it can also be a dangerous tool, and is
not an alternative for observation. If the observation doesn’t match the model, ditch the model. A good
model will be matched with observation and mineralogy and testwork, and so will account for how mineral
behaviour can be fundamentally changed by, eg grinding.
So my second point is, more testwork, less modelling.

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 Regrind minor stream
More regrinding, less grinding, Circulating loads
less flotation, less reagents Inefficient grinding
Steel harms chemistry

Don’t regrind concentrate

fine enough
Grind whole tonnage too fine

To make my third point, I will use a common concentrator flowsheet.

We have a lot of grinding up front, a lot of flotation capacity, high circulating loads – typically about 100%, and a small
amount of regrinding on a return stream.

How can we use modern tools to reduce the energy consumption of this circuit?

Firstly, I think we often grind the whole tonnage finer than we need. And usually we don’t grind the cleaner feed – a much
smaller stream - fine enough. Quantitative mineralogy may tell us how to grind much more efficiently.

With roughing, we don’t have to worry about liberation of the mineral. We just want to liberate enough gangue from it so
we can get it into a smaller tonnage stream in rougher concentrate – we just need to get rid of enough “anchors” to float the
values.

But in cleaning, we need to get rid of the “anchors” too, to remover the impurities before smelting. Here we are need high
liberation of the valuable mineral. So in roughing our mineralogy should look at gangue liberation, in cleaning it should
look at mineral liberation.

So while our primary grind may be too coarse, often we don’t regrind fine enough. Worse, not only don’t we regrind
enough, but we often do it in the wrong place too. Here it is at the end of the circuit, within a circulating load. How can it
affect the concentrate, when we have already made most of the concentrate before any minerals even sees the regrind mill ?
We send particles around and around the circuit, and because there isn’t enough regrinding we never really change the
particles, they circulate until the finally leave in either tailings or concentrate. We might think they are “hidden” in the
circulating load. But don’t fool ourselves – they aren’t behaving any differently just because we can’t see them, but the
100% circulating load means we need twice as much flotation capacity as we should.

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 More regrinding, less grinding,
less flotation, less reagents

Remove circulating loads

Coarser Primary Grind

Regrind rougher concentrate

Flash flotation

High grade, low impurity concentrate

So how can we use existing tools to design a more efficient concentrator ?

Firstly, the mineralogy may allow us to coarsen the primary grind and still get
high rougher recovery – saving a huge amount of energy (or increasing the
throughput of an existing circuit).
Secondly, we can compensate for the loss of primary grinding by regrinding
rougher concentrate. And regrind it fine enough to get high mineral liberation to
make a high grade concentrate – maybe much higher than we currently make.
Modern stirred mills like the IsaMill do this efficiently, and generally produce
fast floating minerals due to the inert abrasion. The fast floating minerals are
suited to flash flotation with froth washing to produce a very high grade
concentrate in a small space. In this case I have shown a Jameson Cell, though
other high intensity froth washed devices would do similar. This can be followed
by a smaller number of conventional cells.
In this circuit there is no need for recirculating loads – what are we going to do
differently with the mineral next time if we circulate it again ? Other than hide it
in a circulating load that consumes flotation capacity.

So following these principles, we can design much smaller, simpler circuits,

using less energy and producing higher grade concentrates.

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 “Oz Minerals said the
grade of
concentrates
produced at
Prominent Hill have
been greater than
50% with low
Arsenic content “
Mining News, 2 April 09

An example of this approach is the newly commissioned Copper concentrator for

Oz Minerals at Prominent Hill. In this case the cleaner feed had to be reground in
order to achieve target fluorine and arsenic levels in concentrate.

The photo shows a 3 MW IsaMill which regrinds rougher concentrate in open

circuit, with product passing directly to a single Jameson Cell for flash flotation
to produce up to half the concentrate at high grade, froth washed, in a small
space. The Jameson cell tailings passes to a smaller conventional cleaning circuit
to recover the slower floating concentrate.

The thing to note is the small footprint, simple circuit – with the grinding mill
installed in the middle of the flotation circuit. And also the combination of
technologies that gets the best result – in this case the combination of inert
milling, Jameson Cell and conventional cleaning. Often it isn’t a choice between
technologies, the skill is combining technologies in the right way. Just as golf
isn’t a single choice between drivers and pitching wedges, it is about when and
how to use each, and how to combine them for the best result.

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 Two “Black Holes” in Industry Knowledge

Regrinding

Metal
thermodynamics

Though we have done some great research, I must point out two “black holes” in our knowledge.

Firstly, we know remarkably little about regrinding. We know a lot about primary grinding. There is a database of
information, accepted scale up procedures, and a big range of experts we can consult. We normally get it right – if we
don’t, we don’t get the tonnes, and we go back and see what went wrong.

But it is surprising how little we know about regrinding – say, any grinding below about 70 microns. This is no longer a
niche, it is mainstream. Bond knew that his Work Index didn’t work well in this range. But we have no standard scale up
methods. No good database of actual plant performance. Very few experts in this field. You would be amazed at the huge
differences in energy quoted by regrind mill suppliers for the same duty – they can differ by a factor of three. They can’t all
be right – grinding is about media particles interacting with ore particles. Smaller media will be more efficient for finer
grinding. Stirring the same media at the same speed should give broadly the same result, no matter what the configuration
of the grinding machine. Diligence requires you to check the scale up track-record of each machine. But here’s the
amazing thing – operators rarely “close the loop” on regrinding and compare actual versus predicted performance. So if one
scale up technique is wrong by 50%, it doesn’t get noticed or fixed ! Regrinding isn’t as visible as primary grinding
because it doesn’t affect tonnage. Of course, it is quite difficult to measure what regrind mills actually do because they are
in the middle of a flotation circulating load, so you need to big plant survey to even find out the feed tonnage. It might be
hard, but regrinding is a very important unit process, and this is a remarkable gap in our knowledge..

The other black hole is in metal thermodynamics. Not because we don’t know it; but because we don’t apply it in mineral
processing. We have developed enormously complicated grinding models. I confess I have not understood them for years.
But have you ever seen a grinding model that includes simple thermodynamics ? That tells us how fine we should be
grinding, not how fine we can grind.

I will return to talkative mineral to explain.

Before I do, I would like to say I am very pleased that the JKMRC has developed programs to address these two black
holes. I really hope they receive the high level of industry support which they deserve.

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 Manage the Mill to Smelter Interface

Pentlandite in gangue

Back to our mineral specimen. Good work was done to recover it in the concentrator, and sending it to the smelter is better than
losing it altogether.

But ask the question: What is the lowest energy way to remove this gangue?
• Should I transport it to the smelter, add silica and lime to flux it, then heat the whole lot up to 13500C and slag it off?
• Or could I just break it off at room temperature?

The answer is, it takes about 10 to 14 times the amount of energy to remove this in the smelter than it does in the concentrator.

Yes, this mineral is an extreme example. But we constantly see concentrates that are full of composites, and could be much higher
grade than they are. We have the tools to significantly increase concentrate grade – mineralogy, efficient regrinding like the IsaMill,
froth washing. But the biggest barrier is organisational. Concentrators don’t produce higher grade concentrate because “the smelter
doesn’t want it”. Well, I managed concentrators on an integrated site and I heard from the smelter managers every day. Ultimately
my sins caught up with me, and my karma was to become a smelter manager myself. So I can assure you that smelters don’t like high
grade the way that Scotsmen don’t like Single Malt whiskey.

Over 20 years ago our industry woke up to the potential to improve overall process efficiency by working at the mine to mill interface.
I am now convinced that the mill to smelter interface may be a bigger, more insidious problem. Because every mill is next to a mine.
In the end we talk to each other and solve problems. If we don’t the general manager will bang our heads together until we do. But
most smelters are not on the same site. Often they are in a different country, run by a different company. The concentrator
metallurgist never speaks to the smelter metallurgist, and certainly not about optimising energy efficiency. Our commercial person
talks to their commercial person, a price is set based on supply and demand of concentrate. All the metallurgists know is that the
contract grade is 25% copper – so the mill metallurgist gets the most recovery he can up to this grade.

In a a real life example, Anglo Platinum is currently in a program to install 21 IsaMills in their concentrators. Initially their
concentrator metallurgists were interested in higher recovery. Testwork demonstrated higher recovery, but also that significant
increases in grade were possible. Initially concentrator metallurgists thought the grade increase was not so important, since they were
already producing to the smelter contract specification. But the smelting people saw a huge opportunity – they were planning a major
capital program to increase smelting capacity. It was much cheaper to increase smelting throughput by regrinding to increase
concentrate than by expanding smelters. And in this application, typically one extra MW of regrinding in the concentrator saves 10
MW of energy in the smelter.

Nickel and Platinum are more extreme examples. But we have found significant improvements in almost every site we have looked at
– lead, zinc, copper, …. Recall Prominent Hill – yes it is early days, but they have reported a concentrate of 50% copper with low
impurities.

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The Path to Energy Efficiency

Close the black holes

Better use Existing Tools

Improve our organisations

Improve public policy

So how do we make a step change in energy efficiency ?

Firstly we need to use the existing tools that we have better. I think we need to better use laboratory
flotation backed up with quantitative mineralogy (used forensically, not as an analytical hammer). We
need to look at the minerals themselves and be very careful of models. And if we look at the minerals
themselves, we will see if there are opportunities to use the new efficient comminution technologies.

Secondly, we need to close the current black holes in our knowledge. Why do we know so little about
regrinding in our circuits. It is critical to efficiency. And how can we optimise energy efficiency in the
mill without considering the energy demand of concentrates. We have to include metal thermodynamics in
our models. I am pleased to say that the JKMRC has picked up both of these challenges and is currently
offering two projects to close these gaps.

Thirdly, we have to challenge our own organisation structures. We still work in silos. When was the last
time the concentrator metallurgist spoke to the smelter metallurgist about optimising energy efficiency?
OK, maybe we don’t own the smelter and it is overseas. So then, if we take our signals from contract
terms, why don’t they reflect the true cost of smelting ? And why do we continue to set poorly designed
kpi’s that drive the wrong behaviour, that force managers to focus on one part of the jigsaw at the expense
of the others. I can tell you that there are sites that have implemented the changes I have spoken of with
very high level support. Yet elsewhere in the same organisation someone has set kpi’s and bonuses for the
concentrator manage that punish him or her for the cost increase and don’t reward for grade. Should we be
surprised that he would prefer to shut the regrind mill down, when his company will pay him a higher
bonus for doing so, even though they tell him to run it?

And why is there a black hole in knowledge about regrinding, one of the most important parts of our
circuits. Yes, regrinding mills are hard to survey. But measuring efficiency, then improving it, is our job.
We have great young metallurgists in our organisations who work really hard. So what are we asking them
to do if we aren’t asking them to measure and improve efficiency ? If they don’t do it, who will ?

So we need to be brave enough to challenge our own methods and our own organisations. After then, we
need to be brave enough to try to improve public policy.

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The Elephant in the Mill

Because just as our poorly designed kpi’s can be a disincentive to regrinding this particle, so can
policy design. For example, as currently proposed, the Emissions Trading Scheme would be a
disincentive to spend energy to grind our above particle in Australia. Instead, it would encourage
us to use less energy in Australia and produce more of these particles, then send them to another
country, for example China, for treatment. So instead of processing the gangue efficiently here,
we would transport waste halfway across the world on a ship using fossil fuels, transport it across
China in a truck, then smelt it using 14 times the energy that a smelter could have used here. In
this case, a well intentioned policy will achieve exactly the opposite of what it intends, a
significant reduction in energy efficiency.
So as engineers, we need to first get our own house in order, but then we need to engage on issues
like this. We have to help get public policy right. These facts might be inconvenient, but energy
efficiency is our business. If we don’t do it, who will ?

In closing, the title of my talk was the elephant in the mill. This particle is a symbol of that.
The elephant is that most concentrators can make much higher concentrate grade than they
currently make. This will significantly improve the energy efficiency of metals production.
And we don’t need new breakthroughs to do it. We only need to do 3 things.
We need to look at our organisations differently.
We need to combine the existing tools in the right way.
And we need to look at the minerals in the right way.

And like all good insights, one you see the problem, it is obvious.

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