Effect of process mineralogy on grindability – A case study of copper ores
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17159/Abstract
This study looked at the effect of mineralogy on the grinding behaviour of three copper ores classified as sulphide 1, sulphide 2 and oxide. The dominant copper minerals for these ores were determined based on the atom-gram proportions of Cu, Fe and S obtained from the SEM EDS analysis and also from optical microscopy analysis. It was concluded that sulphide 1 ore was essentially associated with bornite, sulphide 2 ore was mainly composed of chalcopyrite, and the oxide ore was dominantly composed of malachite and minor azurite. A laboratory ball mill was used to evaluate the grindability of the ores at varying milling times. The mass distribution data obtained fitted well into the Weibull distribution and the residence time independent parameter ( ), which is measuring the distribution width, was computed. This parameter averaged 1.4 and 1.1 for sulphides and oxide ores, respectively. The modular particle size (xc) decreased with increasing milling time. By applying the Bond ball mill standard procedures, the Bond work indices for the ores were determined. The Bond work indices were 13.8, 21.6 and 17.3 kWh/t for sulphide 1 (principally bornite), sulphide 2 (dominantly chalcopyrite) and oxide (mainly malachite and minor azurite) ores respectively. This infers that the chalcopyrite ore is the hardest, while the malachite ore has intermediate hardness and the bornite ore is the softest. A similar conclusion was also deduced by determining the brittleness index, relative toughness, reduction ratios, and the specific comminution energy.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Titus Nghipulile, Thomas Ehongo Moongo, Godfrey Dzinomwa, Kasonde Maweja, Benjamin Mapani, Jacqueline Kurasha, Martha Amwaama
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