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INTRODUCTION
Two persistent issues that cause trouble for even the most valiant
attempts at quality mine-mill metal accounting, reconciliation
and optimisation are:
1.
2.
2.
3.
4.
2.
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Hydrometallurgical hold-ups
For hydrometallurgical processing (common in gold processing,
for example), process hold-ups can involve significant periods of
time (days or weeks) and significant values of material. These
often involve phase changes (from solids in slurry to metal in
solution or on carbon), which add an additional element of
difficulty and uncertainty into the balance. Managing such
hold-ups requires a reasonably accurate method of measuring the
inputs and outputs to the hold-up over an accounting period,
supplemented with an occasional stock-take where all in-process
inventory is run-out, where possible, to establish a zero point for
in-process material (AMIRA, 2007). Progressing this condition
through the complete plant is called a bubble survey (more
common in downstream metals processing), which is effective
but can be costly in terms of lost production.
Inventory changes in gold CIP/CIL plants are hard to measure,
for example, and a mass balancing strategy that can cope with
phase changes must be used (such as the one used in the Mincom
Production Accounting solution using the engine of the former
JKMetAccount V2) (Guerney, Dunglison and Cameron, 2005).
Additionally, solution density segregation makes for difficult
representative stock sampling in hydrometallurgical scenarios.
While establishing an appropriate means of metal accounting
around hydrometallurgical operations is extremely important
(especially considering the high value of material usually
involved), this issue warrants scant discussion here because it is
outside the scope of this work.
~ 53mm
Equipment set-up
To conduct an RFID ore tracking experiment, one must obtain
and install the appropriate infrastructure for reading the passive
tags. This equipment records the time when each tag passes the
reading point. An antenna, reader and data logger are required to
read the tags as they pass through the system. These were
obtained and installed, with guidance from Metso Minerals, at
NPM according to Figure 2.
All of the tracer addition points in the NPM underground
mines were selected to go onto the module 2 feed stockpile, as
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TABLE 1
Underground mine tracers location and time placed.
Batch
Tracer
numbers
Location placed
Approximate
time placed
1A
1 - 10
11/21/07 16:00
1B
11 - 20
11/21/07 16:00
21 - 40
11/21/07 23:00
41 - 60
11/21/07 23:00
61 - 80
11/22/07 23:00
81 - 100
TABLE 2
Ore tracking tracer times from placement to stockpile reclaim.
Tracer
group
1a
1b
Tracer #
Time detected
(day, hh:mm)
Time from
placement
(hh:mm)
Time from
placement
(mins)
11/22/2007 12:58
20:58
1258
11/22/2007 13:27
21:27
1287
10
11/22/2007 13:54
21:54
1314
11/22/2007 16:53
24:53
1493
14
11/21/2007 23:51
07:51
471
13
11/22/2007 19:16
27:16
1636
15
11/23/2007 08:52
40:52
2452
23
11/22/2007 13:52
14:52
892
34
11/22/2007 15:13
16:13
973
37
11/22/2007 18:27
19:27
1167
22
11/22/2007 21:42
22:42
1362
40
11/23/2007 05:39
30:39
1839
21
11/23/2007 06:30
31:30
1890
38
11/23/2007 07:21
32:21
1941
36
11/23/2007 07:37
32:27
1957
27
11/23/2007 11:06
36:06
2166
28
11/24/2007 01:16
50:16
3016
24
11/24/2007 14:55
63:55
3835
35
11/24/2007 22:11
71:11
4271
68
11/24/2007 12:37
61:37
3697
75
11/24/2007 13:23
62:23
3743
76
11/24/2007 15:16
64:16
3856
78
11/26/2007 06:01
103:01
6181
79
11/26/2007 06:44
103:44
6224
77
11/26/2007 07:38
104:38
6278
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Rock moulds
Ideally, simulated ore feed containing fines through to the top
size particles of semi-autogenous (SAG) feed should be tested,
but the particle size distribution for this experiment is limited on
the fine side by the size of the RFID tag to be embedded (~28
mm) and on the coarse side by the largest particle size of rock
typically reporting to the stockpile (~150 - 200 mm). Five
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10. either place filled moulds in oven at 70C for four hours or
air-dry overnight;
FIG 5 - Steps of filling rock moulds with mixture and RFID tag.
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W JANSEN et al
the first group of five particles was thrown onto the conveyor
belt while running and the time recorded;
each group of five was placed separately on the belt ~15 20 seconds after the previous one, recording the time for each
until all were used;
after five days, the antenna and reader were disconnected and
the data was read from the readers attached data logger.
FIG 7 - Batches of rocks prior to loading onto stockpile feed conveyor belt.
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Detected Particle
y = 397.13Ln(x) - 708
R2 = 0.6336
2000
Particle Size
Retention Time
Geometric Mean
Log. (Particle Size
Retention Time
Geometric Mean)
DEAD ANTENNA
1000
0
30
45
60
75
90
105
120
Results
The experiments went reasonably well with the exception that
there was a problem with some of the batteries used to power the
readers and antennae used at the detection point. This problem
resulted in a period of approximately eight hours during the
experiment when the stockpile reclaim reader/antenna had no
power, during which time they were not able to detect any tags
passing in the stream. However, outside of this eight hour dead
time, the stockpile reclaim reader/antenna managed to detect 70
of 125 of the stockpile retention time tracers.
05:49
50
06:57
67.5
06:01
80
07:21
120
14:19
Figure 9 shows the retention time results for all particles, and
it appears that the majority of tracers experienced a retention
time of between roughly six and 17 hours. It must be noted,
however that at roughly t = 17 hours, the battery for the antenna
died and there is no information regarding the frequency of
particle detection over the following eight hours. Considering the
frequency at which they were being detected until the battery
died, it is reasonable to assume that the large majority of
remaining tracers would have been detected during this eight
hour period. This statement refers to tracers that would have been
read, which means that even with full battery power, it is possible
that there would not be 100 per cent detection of reclaimed
particles.
For the 36.5 mm size fraction, for example, 18 of the 25 tracers
were detected between six and 17 hours at an average rate of one
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GENERAL IMPLEMENTATION OF
TRACER-BASED METHODS
Based on the results of the work presented in the previous
sections using the SmartTag RFID ore tracking system, it is
clear that tracer-based methods can provide substantial
information about operation for a relatively small investment in
time and cost. Considering the fact that all mining operations
have unique flow sheets and process hold-ups, the usefulness of
such techniques in a broader sense must be considered.
FIG 10 - Histograms of raw and log of retention times for five tracer sizes.
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W JANSEN et al
Zone 3
Zone 1
Zone 2
FIG 11 - NPM underground mine feed size distribution divided roughly into three stockpile behavioural zones.
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CONCLUSIONS
The tracking of material from source to product and for use in
evaluating process hold-up behaviour has been demonstrated in
this paper, but it is important to emphasise the implications of the
resulting information on metal accounting and reconciliation,
which is the basic goal of this study. Improved knowledge of the
residence time and mixing/classification behaviour of individual
process hold-ups as well as the entire system in general provides
a significant level of important information for use in metal
accounting and reconciliation. The general conclusions from this
study include:
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REFERENCES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Rio Tinto and the personnel of
Northparkes Mines for their support in this initiative, with
special thanks to Dr Ray Shaw, Miles Naude and Alain Bouchard
of Rio Tinto and Allan Allport of Metso Minerals.
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