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GARPENBERG – AN OLD CONCENTRATOR AT PEAK PERFORMANCE

Bolin Nils Johan, Brodin Petra, Lampinen Petra

Boliden Mineral AB, Sweden
E-mail: nj.bolin@boliden.se

Abstract
Mining of complex sulphide ore started in the 13th century in the Garpenberg area and
Boliden Mineral AB bought the operation in 1957. The ore is rich in silver and zinc, but
contains also copper, lead and gold in payable amounts. Fully autogenous grinding was
introduced in 1989 and the flotation results have gradually been improved using
common basic methods.

This paper gives a step-by-step description of how the improvements were made and
the dead-ends that also were investigated. The flowsheet today is a by-the-book
solution with good liberation as the basic guideline for getting good results.

Keywords: Autogenous grinding, Gravity concentration, Froth flotation, Dewatering

Introduction
Boliden Mineral AB owns and operates three concentrators in Sweden and one in
Canada. At two of the concentrators, ore feed comes from several mines. Boliden
owns and operates two smelters and a number of plants in Europe for
manufacturing copper tubing, brass and special products. There is also a company
for sales of technology in the Boliden Group. Turnover in 2001 was SEK 10 250
million and the number of employees 3 749.

The Garpenberg area is situated in the Bergslagen region of central Sweden,

around 160 km northwest of the capital Stockholm. Bergslagen has an old mining
history with regard to sulphide and iron ores, and several industrial mineral
operations are also active in the area. Mining of iron ores came to an end in 1992,
and sulphide ores are mined today only at Zinkgruvan and Garpenberg. Boliden
Mineral AB bought the Garpenberg operation in 1957 and has run it since then.
Production currently comes from two separate mines, Garpenberg and Garpenberg
Norra, and the present concentrator was built 1950 – 53.

The ores at Garpenberg are distributed in an elongated bowl structure in the

bedrock. The bottom of the bowl consists of limestone and domes have risen in
many places around the bowl with ore bodies located in the top of the domes.
Figure 1 illustrates the bowl and dome structure. Some of the ore bodies are
marked out in the figure.

The ore sulphide minerals are chalcopyrite, galena and sphalerite with small
amounts of pyrrhotite and pyrite. Gold is mainly in amalgam together with some
silver. Silver is mainly in freibergite and some in tetrahedrite and as native silver.
Talc is abundant in some parts of the ores. The sphalerite contains some
manganese in the lattice. Manganese is common in the silicate gangue minerals
and is also found locally in the sulphide ores as alabandite, MnS.

The ore grades are 0.5 g/ton Au, 160 g/ton Ag, 0.1 % Cu, 2.3 % Pb and 4.2 % Zn.
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Figure 1. A 3-D model of the Garpenberg mining area showing the rock bowl of
limestone.

The ore feed to the plant has come mainly from the Garpenberg and Garpenberg
Norra ore bodies. The Garpenberg ore body will be depleted in a few years and
feed from the “Norra” mine has increased during the last ten years while the feed
from the Garpenberg mine has been unchanged. The Gransjö and Kaspersbo ore
bodies have been mined during the last few years from the “Norra” mine.
Dammsjön is only investigated in the upper parts and the Lappberget
mineralisation was found a couple of years back and is currently being
investigated. There are also some smaller mineralisations known in the area and it
is anticipated that more ore bodies will be found.

Garpenberg Concentrator history after introduction of autogenous grinding

The present concentrator at Garpenberg is the third in history as far as we know.
Mining started around the year 1200. The throughput has increased from 260 000
tonnes/year in 1957 to slightly more than 1 M tonnes/year today. Fully autogenous
grinding replaced conventional grinding using rod and pebble mills in 1989, and
ores from the two mines were run together from 1990 instead of in separate
campaigns. All-year-round production was introduced from 1996.

Primary grinding developments

The switch from rod mill to autogenous grinding was done for economic reasons
and because of positive results in pilot plant flotation tests. These tests indicated
nearly $1/ton higher revenue due to better process results after autogenous
grinding. Furthermore, all the comparisons made by Boliden suggested that the
operation costs would be $1 to $2 per ton lower using autogenous grinding. The
decision to switch to autogenous grinding was therefore easy to take, especially
since one suitable mill was available within the company.
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After the switch to autogenous grinding, the ores from Garpenberg and
Garpenberg Norra continued to be milled separately, but they were soon mixed.
The Norra ore is fairly hard and the Garpenberg ore is soft. Consequently, mixing
the ores gives better grinding results than to run them separately.

Developments have been made since the installation regarding methods to

improve throughput. Until 1999, the primary and secondary mill were run by
maximising the power draw on the condition that the mills should not be too filled
up. A mill charge sensor developed in-house has been used. A switch to control by
“fuzzy” logic from CISA, was then made for maximising the throughput. Around
2.5 % higher throughput was reached according to repeated on-off testing.
In spring 2001 the control system in the plant was switched from a Siemens to an
ABB system. New regulators with better performance and calibrations permitted a
closer control of the grinding and it was possible to run close to the upper limits
for the power draw in the mills. The CISA regulation system has therefore not
been run for the last couple of years. A planned improvement is to run at higher
pulp density to increase the power draw if the mill is filled to maximum capacity
but is below maximum power draw.

An increase in mine production lately has necessitated pre-crushing of part of the

feed to the primary mill. The throughput was raised in spring 2002 from 90 - 130
tonnes/hour to around 160 tonnes/hour. The fraction –100 to +35 mm from the
Norra ore was crushed to - 35 mm. Pre-crushing was also done late in 2002 but
with a smaller increase in feed rate.

An investigation to study the difference in efficiency between primary and

secondary stage grinding was undertaken in pilot plant scale during 1998. The
efficiency was however the same regardless of which grinding system was used.
The comparisons of flotation results showed on the other hand that the lead
flotation was influenced by the method of grinding. Carrying out a smaller portion
of the grinding in the second stage, resulted in a higher lead concentrate grade.
Due to the high density of lead minerals, they pass to the underflow in the cyclone
and go back to grinding in the secondary mill. The lead minerals will therefore be
ground more if the second mill does more of the total grinding work and the result
will be overgrinding in the Garpenberg case.

Developments in gravimetric separation

Gravimetric separation has been in operation at Garpenberg since 1988. At first, a
simple installation was made with only two stages, comprising a Reichert cone and
a shaking table, due to the small space available. In 2000 a middle stage
concentration with 4 spirals (each with two inlets) was installed, making the set-up
similar to the installations in the Boliden concentrator. The gold recovery is 10 to
15 % to the gravimetric concentrate along with around 3 % silver in metal form.
The lead recovery is lower than 1 % at a grade of around 60 % Pb. An automatic
in-house developed regulation of the final concentrate is done on the shaking table
with the help of a CCD-camera.
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Year Ore feed Cu conc. Pb conc. Zn conc. Cu+Pb conc.

kton/year Grade Recovery Grade Recovery Grade Recovery Recovery
Cu Cu Pb Pb Zn Zn Ag
1989 736 19.7 50.6 52.5 76.3 53.6 78.6 73.8
1990 747 19.8 60.3 55.7 76.3 53.5 81.4 75.3
1991 873 16.4 69.6 54.6 76.8 52.6 84.0 79.1
1992 824 18.3 72.9 67.4 77.4 53.3 85.8 77.8
1993 800 18.5 76.9 69.6 76.2 53.4 86.4 77.3
1994 811 20.5 68.4 69.6 78.5 53.3 85.6 76.1
1995 750 22.0 66.2 68.7 77.8 53.3 86.8 74.1
1996 842 21.2 61.6 69.3 76.4 54.1 88.7 74.4
1997 898 19.8 62.6 70.2 76.8 53.3 89.8 75.8
1998 956 21.6 64.6 71.0 77.6 53.6 87.8 76.0
1999 976 21.7 68.8 70.2 78.0 54.2 88.0 76.0
2000 976 23.4 63.7 69.7 77.3 55.8 88.4 77.1
2001 984 22.4 64.1 71.9 75.1 55.8 89.4 77.6
2002 1058 20.3 61.3 72.6 77.4 55.7 88.9 76.7

Table 1. Annual results 1989 – 2002.

Fig. 2 Flowsheet for the Garpenberg concentrator

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The copper-lead circuit
The copper-lead rougher flotation is done in two parallel series and the rougher
concentrate is cleaned in one bank in three steps. The first cleaner tail is pumped
back to the conditioner for the feed. The scavenger concentrate is pumped to a
thickener and the underflow is re-ground with low power consumption of around 1
kWh/tonne of feed to the plant. The flotation is done at natural pH with potassium
amyl xanthate as the collector. Poly glycol methyl ether, Dowfroth 250, is used as
the frother. The pH is around 10.5 because some of the cement back-fill used in
the mine comes back with the ore. SO2 with a dithiophosphinate, 3418A, was
previously used when more cement stabilised back-fill material came to the mill.
Today the amount of cement stabilised back-fill material has decreased. ZnSO4 is
used for depressing zinc in the copper-lead flotation and some dextrin is added to
depress talc.

Re-grinding was in operation from the start of the new autogenous grinding
circuit, but did not give a good result with feed directly from the scavenger
concentrate. A cyclone battery was installed and grinding on cyclone underflow
gave a better result. The results were good enough to let us remove the
complicated HGMS-circuit (Holmberg et. al. 1991) for cleaning of the lead
concentrate. The HGMS was removed in 1997. However, the re-grinding was still
not giving a satisfactory result. The material in the scavenger concentrate was so
fine that it was difficult to get enough high pulp density for the re-grinding. A
thickener was available and solved the problem around 2000.

The copper-lead concentrate is separated with depression of lead with dichromate.

No other reagent is used in the separation. The froth in the first two copper
cleaners are is washed by water added in a box with holes above the froth since
around 1994.

The zinc circuit

Zinc is activated by copper sulphate and the flotation is done in a lime
environment at pH 11.5. Sodium iso butyl xanthate is used as the collector and
Dowfroth 250 as the frother. A small quantity of dextrin is used in the cleaners to
depress talc. The flotation is done in one line with cleaning in three steps.
Underflow from cycloning the first cleaner tail is re-ground with 0.5 kWh/tonne
calculated on feed rate. Re-grinding of the scavenger concentrate should give
better results according to recent lab tests. Tests at full scale will show if the
improvements are maintained at full scale. Several pilot tests during 1995 were
done in parallel with the existing zinc circuit. Re-grinding, flotation time, and
reagent additions etc were tested. The outcome was that increased addition of
dextrin was positive and also increased scavenger flotation. Increased flotation
capacity or more re-grinding did not give any improvement.

Dewatering
Dewatering is done with thickeners and drum filters. The final drying was done
with rotary dryers until around one year ago. A pressure filter is currently replacing
the drum filter and rotary dryer for the lead dewatering.
A special dewatering aid invented by professor Yoon and sold by Ondeo has
allowed us to shut down the rotary dryer for zinc dewatering.

Tailings disposal
The tailing is passed through a battery of cyclones in one step and the underflow
goes for back-filling in the mines after being dewatered on a drum filter. The fines
go to a traditional tailing pond with tailing disposal in the first part and a clarifying
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pond in the second part of the disposal area. Around 50 % of the tailings are used
for back-filling. Around 60-70 % of the process water is reclaimed from the
tailings pond and the rest comes from a lake in the mining area.

Comments on developments at full scale

Process developments at full scale are often tricky to evaluate. The use of on-
stream analysers is helpful today for finding quick responses to changes in the
process. The differences in results are unfortunately often small and variations in
ore compositions influence the results much more than what is actually
investigated. Repeated on-off tests are helpful. The possibility to run parallel tests
in pilot plant scale is a better solution, but the cost or other factors might be
prohibitive. Lab tests on products from the plant help monitor correct grinding and
the chemical environment. A very good tool is to perform liberation investigations
on products. A cumulative liberation yield diagram for a zinc concentrate from
March-May 1993 is shown in figure 3. The diagram shows that it might be
possible to achieve better liberation. The non-liberated particles are in rather
coarse fractions and in classes where most of the particles are dominated by ZnS.

100
99
98
97
Acc. % lib.

96 >90
95 63-90
94 45-63
93 20-45
92 <20
91
90
0-10 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 60-70 70-80 80-90 90-100
Class % of Zn(Fe)S in particle

Fig. 3 Cumulative liberation yield for Zn(Fe)S on a Zn concentrate from March-

May 1993

Investigation of species on mineral surfaces by the help of LIMS (Laser Ion Mass
Spectrometry) can be used to find out why minerals end up in the wrong products.

Above all, developments should follow a logical order, in which liberation status
is investigated first. The basics, such as good grinding, re-grinding, rougher and
cleaner flotation time, should be taken care of first. Tests with new collectors and
other technologies could be done after the basics are in good shape.

Dead-ends
Cumulative liberation yield curves on tailing from copper-lead flotation showed
that there was little hope to increase lead recovery compared to normal production
results.

Pilot plant testing in parallel to the existing zinc circuit showed that flotation
capacity is not a limitation at normal feed rate and zinc feed grade. It also showed
that excessive re-grinding should be avoided. Studies of liberated sphalerite going
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to the final tailing showed that the surfaces had much higher content of
oxyhydroxide coatings and much less copper than the surfaces on sphalerite that
floated (Chryssoulis et.al. 1999). No ideas to overcome this phenomenon have
worked so far.

Image analysis of flotation froth was tested in order to try to regulate dextrin
dosage in the copper-lead rougher flotation. The results were good in the test
periods but could not be used outside the periods for producing the models. Image
analysis was also tested for indicating breakdown of the froth due to overdosage of
copper sulphate and collector in the zinc flotation. The system gave an indication,
but the time between indication and actual breakdown is too short to be of any
practical use.

Future
The whole line from grinding to dewatering has limitations today. Capacity in the
grinding can be increased somewhat by, for example, pre-crushing some of the
feed at high cost. The capacity in the flotation and dewatering sections is already
limited today when the ore zinc grade is high. A major upgrade of the concentrator
may be necessary in order to take advantage of the promising exploration results in
the area.

Very positive results from regulation of the zinc circuits at the Boliden
concentrator will be implemented at the Garpenberg concentrator in the near
future. The zinc re-grinding will be up-graded with a new cyclone battery and
better pumping capacity.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Boliden Mineral's management
for permission to publish information about the Garpenberg operation.

Reference
Chryssoulis, S., Dimov S., Knipe S., Zhou Y. Characterization of free unfloated
sphalerites. AMTEL report 99/04, January 29, 1999.
Holmberg, K., Johansson, B. Rening av flotationskoncentrat med nya metoder. In:
Konferens i mineralteknik, Luth, Sweden 5-7 February, 1991 (in swedish).