Minerals Engineering 156 (2020) 106524

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Minerals Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mineng

The effect of regrinding on the design of flotation circuits T

a,c,⁎ d b c
Renato Acosta-Flores , Freddy A. Lucay , Edelmira D. Gálvez , Luis A. Cisternas
a
Unidad de Equipamiento Científico (Maini), Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile
b
Departamento de Ingeniería Metalúrgica y Minas, Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile
c
Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Procesos de Minerales, Universidad de Antofagasta, Antofagasta, Chile
d
Escuela de Ingeniería Química, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The regrinding of some streams within flotation circuits, to liberate valuable mineral attached to gangue, is a
Design common practice. However, the methodologies proposed for flotation circuit design based on optimization,
Flotation circuits usually, do not consider regrinding. This work analyzes the effect of the uncertainty in flotation and regrinding
Regrinding stages on the design of flotation circuits via mathematical optimization. We postulate that there are few optimal
Uncertainty
circuit structures when regrinding is included in the design problem under uncertainty. Two methods of proof
Mathematical optimization
are used to confirm the postulated hypothesis: proof by construction and proof by exhaustion. Results obtained
allow us to confirm the hypothesis, which allows separating the design of the flotation circuits into two steps.
First, a set of optimal structures are determined. Second, the equipment design parameters and operating
conditions are determined through simulation and laboratory tests.

1. Introduction optimization is a complex task due to the non-convexity of the model

Although flotation dates back more than 140 years since the first
patent in 1877 (MEI, 2017), it is one of the most used technologies in
the mining industry for the treatment of several minerals. However, no
model can successfully predict the relationship between all the process
variables and process performance (Cisternas et al., 2017). The lack of
models that explain and satisfactorily predict flotation and regrinding
units poses a challenge for circuit designers. Therefore, epistemic un-
certainties exist in the evaluation of the performance of flotation and
regrinding units. These epistemic uncertainties are generated because
semi-empirical models are used with parameters that are a function of
the circuit design. However, adjusting these models based on experi-
mental data is not possible because the experimental conditions are not
known at the design stage or, in other words, the model parameters of
the stages are design dependent.
The superstructure of processes should represent all possible process
alternatives for which evaluation is required. A superstructure includes
the type and number of flotation stages in the process, the possibility of
regrinding stages, the interconnections of these stages, and the tech-
nologies (e.g., the use of cells or columns). Defining a good super-
structure is important since it outlines the number of alternatives and,
with this information, the size of the problem to be solved (Cisternas
et al., 2017). However, the design of flotation circuits based on
and the inclusion of binary variables, making it difficult to obtain a
global optimum solution. In other words, usually the design problem
has multiple local optima, and the non-convexity of the model makes it
difficult to find the globally best solution. The mathematical model
results in a mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problem.
Mehrotra and Kapur (1974) were the first to consider the design of
flotation circuits using optimization tools. They used a superstructure in
which each concentrate and tail were allowed to be sent to any stage,
including the same equipment by which it was generated. This was a
groundbreaking idea at the time; however, this superstructure did not
represent reality since it opposed the theory of heuristics by allowing a
combination of streams with different mineral concentrations in a
single stream (Prince and Connolly, 1996). Reuter et al. (1988) reported
another method of representing the construction of superstructures.
They used a generic superstructure to represent each stage, and then a
model was constructed for each generic stage. Subsequently, Schena
et al. (1997) modified the superstructure including a feed mixer at each
stage. However, the number of alternatives was still high because
nonsense alternatives were included. By combining this type of super-
structure with an origin–destination matrix for each stream of con-
centrate and tail, Cisternas et al. (2014) significantly reduced the
number of alternatives. This origin–destination matrix also gives the
designer control on the set of alternatives to be included in the design

⁎
Corresponding author at: Unidad de Equipamiento Científico (Maini), Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile.
E-mail address: renato.acosta@ucn.cl (R. Acosta-Flores).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2020.106524
Received 27 November 2019; Received in revised form 16 June 2020; Accepted 17 June 2020
0892-6875/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
R. Acosta-Flores, et al.
problem. Given the complexity of the design problem, a few species
(usually two or three) and simple bank models (generally first-order
models) were usually considered in the design (Cisternas et al., 2017).
Cisternas et al. (2015) demonstrated that few structures exist that
are optimal for a wide range of values of concentration stage recoveries.
From the point of view of the flotation circuit design, it can be said that
the approximate recovery values for each species in each stage can be
used to identify a set of optimal solutions. This conclusion was used by
Acosta-Flores et al. (2018), Calisaya et al. (2016), and Cisternas et al.
(2016) to solve a real-size problem. This is to say, problems with a large
number of species and with more complex models for cells and/or
banks. They were able to solve a real-size problem by dividing the
problem into two steps; first, a set of optimal flotation circuit structures
were determined by representing the stage recoveries with a uniform
distribution function and solving the problem several times so that the
entire space of possible recovery values was considered; second, the
optimal flotation circuit was determined for each of the flotation circuit
structures identified in the previous step. However, in these works, the
inclusion of the regrinding stages was not considered. This is a con-
siderable disadvantage since it is well known that the regrinding and
classification circuits improve the production yields, the recovery, and
the grade of the concentrate (Méndez et al., 2009b).
Although the design of flotation circuits has been studied since the
mid-1970s, the possibility of including regrind circuits has been rarely
addressed (Cisternas et al., 2018; Méndez et al., 2009a). Schena et al.
(1997) proposed a methodology for determining the optimal network
configuration of flotation plants, including regrinding units. They used
a superstructure that includes all the potential connections between
flotation and regrinding units. The mathematical formulation of the
optimization problem results in a MINLP problem. Because of the
complexity of the mathematical model, they proposed to decompose it
into subproblems and solve it sequentially, which can result in locally
optimal solutions. Besides, in the application of the methodology they
do not consider regrinding unit selection and configuration. Providing
some detail, they fixed the number of regrind units and the inter-
connection of each regrind unit in the superstructure. Méndez et al.
(2009b) developed linear models of grinding, grinding–classification,
classification–grinding, and classification–grinding–classification cir-
cuits based on material balances supported by population balances. For
the grinding modeling they used parameters to represent the fraction of
one class of particles which delivers material to another. These models
were applied to design flotation circuits, including regrinding, adapting
an optimization methodology previously proposed that does not include
regrinding (Cisternas et al., 2006). However, given the complexity of
the problem, they considered the flotation stage recoveries and the
grinding parameters as fixed values, which does not allow a reliable
solution to be obtained.
There are models based on size reduction phenomena to describe
the grinding operation; however, they are of little help for predicting
the liberation in regrinding mills. As it is well known, particle liberation
plays a critical role in flotation processes as proven by several studies,
Example 1 ...
Uncertainty
scenario 1
Proof by Uncertainty
Example 2
ĐoŶƐƚrƵĐƟoŶ scenario 2
Uncertainty
scenario 3
Example 3 ...
Fig. 1. Procedure for proofing.
2
Minerals Engineering 156 (2020) 106524
for example by comparison of kinetic parameters for liberated or locked
particles (Bakalarz et al., 2017; Morizot et al., 1997). As was indicated
by Schena et al. (1997), several approaches exist that can be used to
describe the liberation of locked particles in a regrinding unit included
in a flotation network. However, they are complex models to be in-
cluded in the design optimization problem, and their fitting cannot be
done without knowing the flotation circuit configuration. Therefore,
there is a gap of knowledge for including the regrinding unit in the
design of the flotation circuit. At least, there is a need to know the effect
of regrind epistemic uncertainty in the flotation circuit structure and
appropriate models for liberation to be included in the design optimi-
zation problem. This work analyzes the first issue. We investigated the
effect of the uncertainties in flotation units, regrinding units, and both
units simultaneously in the design of flotation circuit structures. We
postulated that few optimal structures exist for a wide range of values in
the stage recoveries and regrinding conversions.
2. Procedure
The hypothesis postulated is that few structures exist that are op-
timal for a wide range of values in the performance of the process units.
The performance of process units is given by the recoveries for flotation
stages and “conversion” from one particle class to another particle class
in regrinding units.
2.1. Uncertainty analysis
The uncertainty analysis corresponds to quantifying the variability
of the output as a result of the variability of inputs. Uncertainty can be
divided into stochastic and epistemic (Helton and Burmaster, 1996;
Oberkampf, 2005). The first is related to the inherently variable and
unpredictable nature exhibited by the studied system. The second is
related to the lack of knowledge regarding the analyzed system, which
derives from a deficit of information. Both types of uncertainty can be
represented via probability distributions. In this work, the recovery in
flotation stages and conversion in regrinding present epistemic un-
certainty, due to the insufficient quantity of information. The Principle
of Indifference suggests utilizing uniform distributions to characterize
the epistemic uncertainties under scenarios of lack of information to
distribute their credence equally among all the possible outcomes under
consideration (Helton and Oberkampf, 2004).
2.2. Optimal structures set
To demonstrate that there are few optimal structures when there is
uncertainty in process units, an a priori approach or first principles are
used. Two methods of proof are used: proof by construction and proof
by exhaustion (see Fig. 1). Proof by construction is related to the con-
struction of a concrete example with a property to demonstrate that
something having that property exists. In this work, two examples of
design of a flotation circuit with regrinding units are considered in the
KpƟmal design
for case 1
...
KpƟmal design
Proof by for case 2
exŚaƵsƟon
...
...
KpƟmal design
for case 30,000
R. Acosta-Flores, et al.
proof by construction. In each example, three uncertainty scenarios are
considered, which include uncertainties in flotation stage recoveries
and grinding conversion. In proof by exhaustion, the conclusion is es-
tablished by dividing it into a finite number of cases and proving each
one separately. Here, each uncertainty scenario problem, of the ex-
amples of the proof by construction (see Fig. 1), is solved for a large
number of cases as shown in Fig. 1.
For representing the set of circuit alternatives a superstructure of
flotation stages and regrinding units is used. For the development of the
mathematical model, a mixer is used at the feed of each flotation stage
and regrinding unit. A splitter is used for the concentrate and tail of
each flotation unit. Also, a splitter is used for the output stream from
the regrinding units. These mixers and splitters allow the interconnec-
tion between the flotation stages and regrinding units. The mathema-
tical model is based on mass balances in mixers and splitters. This type
of representation of circuit alternatives is a common approach in the
literature (Cisternas et al., 2015, 2014; Lucay et al., 2019a).
Each flotation stage is modeled using the recovery as a known value.
This latter is determined by sampling, via the Monte Carlo method, the
uniform distribution function representing the recovery for a specific
species in a specific flotation stage. Similarly, each regrinding unit is
modeled using conversion fractions determined by sampling the uni-
form distribution representing the conversion fraction for a specific size
in a specific regrinding unit. The objective function is represented by
the profit maximization (Acosta-Flores et al., 2018). Finally, origi-
n–destination matrices are used to represent the potential concentrate,
tail, and regrinding output stream destination. These origin–destination
matrices allow avoidance of nonsense structures and reduction of the
combinatorial size of the problem.
3. Examples
3.1. Flotation circuit with three stages and one regrinding stage
This example considers the concentration of copper ore. Nine spe-
cies were considered to represent the ore, including three components
(9 t/h of chalcopyrite (CPY) with 33% of copper, 12 t/h of mixed mi-
neral (MIX) with 17% of copper, and 350 t/h of gangue (SC)) and three
particle sizes (f1, f2 and f3). Therefore, the nine species are the com-
bination of components and sizes; for example, species CPY.f1 is chal-
copyrite of size f1. The superstructure considers three flotation stages
and one regrinding unit, representing twelve alternatives for the pro-
cess structure. These twelve process structure alternatives include six
circuit structures without regrinding units. Table 1 shows the origi-
n–destination matrices. In Table 1 “o” represents concentrate streams
and “x” tail streams. For example, the concentrate from the scavenger
flotation stage (S) can be sent to the rougher (R), regrinding (Gr), and
cleaner stages (C); and the tail from the cleaner flotation stage can be
sent to the rougher or scavenger stages. P represents the final con-
centrate, and W represents the final tail. Note that, if all interconnec-
tions are allowed there are 4,096 alternatives, but by eliminating
nonsense alternatives only twelve process structures are obtained. In
addition to the stage recoveries of all species, the “conversion” from one
particle class to another particle class was considered as cases of un-
certain variables. Forty-six variables were represented using a uniform
Table 1
Origin-destination matrices for example of flotation circuit with three stages
and one regrinding stage.
R Gr C S W P
R o o x
Gr o
C x x o
S o o o x pected because the analyzed design problem is complex. The structures
3
Minerals Engineering 156 (2020) 106524
distribution function; twenty-seven correspond to flotation stage re-
covery, and nineteen correspond to conversion in the regrinding stage.
The recovery in flotation stages and conversion in regrinding units
were represented by uniform distribution functions. The values are
shown in Table 2 and Table 3, respectively.
The design problem was coded in GAMS, which is a high-level
modeling system for mathematical programming. In this example, three
scenarios were studied. The first scenario considers uncertainty both in
flotation stages and regrinding units, the second scenario considers only
uncertainty in the regrinding, and the third scenario considers only
uncertainty in the flotation stages. The code was evaluated 30,000
times for each scenario. In all scenarios, only one optimal structure was
obtained, which is shown in Fig. 2. These results confirm that there are
few optimal structures for a design problem under uncertainty in flo-
tation and regrinding units.
An analysis of secondary structures provided by the code indicates
that structures using regrinding units provide better metallurgical
performance than structures that do not include regrinding units.
Evidently, these results are related to the liberation of the valuable
mineral by the regrinding unit. This result is correlated to the evidence
from plant practice. The optimal structure recirculates the cleaner tail
and the scavenger concentrate to the rougher feed, which was expected
because this configuration allows reprocessing of particles more times;
however, overloading of the flotation circuit may result.
3.2. Flotation circuit with six stages and two regrinding stages
In this example, two copper prices were considered, and the char-
acteristics of the design problem are given below. The feed is composed
of nine species, including three main components (9 t/h of chalcopyrite
with 33% of copper, 23 t/h of mixed mineral with 17% of copper, and
350 t/h of gangue) and three particles sizes. The superstructure con-
siders six flotation stages and two regrinding units: Rougher (R),
Cleaner1 (C1), Cleaner2 (C2), Scavenger1 (S1), Scavenger2 (S2),
Cleaner-Scavenger (CS), Regrinding1 (Gr1) and Regrinding2 (Gr2). In
addition, P represents the final concentrate and W represents the final
tail. Table 4 shows the origin–destination matrices for this example.
This superstructure represents 57,600 process structures. Note that if all
interconnections are allowed there are 823,543 alternatives, but by
eliminating nonsense alternatives 57,600 process structures are ob-
tained. The stage recoveries of all species in each flotation stage and the
“conversion” from one particle class to another particle class in the
regrinding units were considered as uncertain variables. Eighty-three
variables were represented using a uniform distribution function; forty-
five of these correspond to stage recovery and thirty-eight correspond
to conversion in the regrinding units.
3.2.1. Copper price equal to 3,500 US$/t
Similarly to example 1, in this sub-example, three scenarios were
studied. The first scenario considers uncertainty both in flotation stages
and regrinding stages, the second scenario considers uncertainty in
regrinding stages, and the third scenario considers uncertainty in flo-
tation stages. The code was evaluated 30,000 times for each scenario,
and results are shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3 shows that in the first scenario, second scenario, and third
scenario the code provided eleven, one, and seven optimal structures,
respectively. Note that the eleven optimal structures represent
0.00019% of the feasible alternatives. Therefore, these results confirm
that there are few optimal structures for a design problem under un-
certainty in flotation and regrinding units. For the first, second and
third scenario in 80%, 100% and 83% of the times respectively, the
code provided structure 2 (predominant structure), which is shown in
Fig. 4. In Fig. 3, structure 1 (orange) symbolizes the percentage of time
in which the code did not converge in each scenario, which was ex-
that represent a low percentage may be related to combinations of
R. Acosta-Flores, et al. Minerals Engineering 156 (2020) 106524

Table 2
Recovery in flotation stages, range of uniform distributions U (a, b) .
Class

Stage CPY.f1 CPY.f2 CPY.f3 MIX.f1 MIX.f2 MIX.f3 SC.f1 SC.f2 SC.f3

Rougher (0.75,0.85) (0.80,0.85) (0.78,0.88) (0.20,030) (0.25,0.35) (0.22,0.32) (0.0,0.1) (0.05,0.15) (0.02,0.12)
Cleaner (0.75,0.85) (0.80,0.85) (0.78,0.88) (0.20,030) (0.25,0.35) (0.22,0.32) (0.0,0.1) (0.05,0.15) (0.02,0.12)
Scavenger (0.75,0.85) (0.80,0.85) (0.78,0.88) (0.20,030) (0.25,0.35) (0.22,0.32) (0.0,0.1) (0.05,0.15) (0.02,0.12)

Table 3
Conversion in regrinding ranges, range of uniform distributions U (a, b) .
CPY.f1 CPY.f2 CPY.f3 MIX.f1 MIX.f2 MIX.f3 SC.f1 SC.f2 SC.f3

CPY.f1 (0.05,0.15) (0.35,0.45) (0.45,0.55)

CPY.f2 (0.15,0.25) (0.75,0.85)
CPY.f3 1
MIX.f1 (0.05,0.15) (0.05,0.15) (0.25,0.30) (0.25,0.30) (0.05,0.15) (0,0.1) (0,0.075) (0,0.075)
MIX.f2 (0.05,0.15) (0.55,0.65) (0.05,0.15) (0.15,0.25)
MIX.f3 1
SC.f1 1
SC.f2 (0.65,0.75) (0.25,0.35)
SC.f3 1

circuits. The structure 3 also utilizes two regrindings stages (see Fig. 4),
which confirms the influence of the regrinding in the metallurgical
performance of flotation circuits.

3.2.2. Copper price equal to 5,000 US$/t

Similarly to the previous example, three scenarios were considered
in this sub-example, and results are shown in Fig. 5. For the first, second
and third scenario in 71%, 97%, and 73% of the times respectively, the
code provided structure 4 (predominant structure), which is shown in
Fig. 6. The structure 1 in Fig. 5 (orange) symbolizes the percentage of
times for which the code did not converge in each scenario. The pre-
dominant structure implements six flotation stages and two regrinding
units. The main difference between the structures shown in Fig. 4 and
the structure in Fig. 6, is that in Fig. 4 the tail of cleaner 2 is sent to
regrinding 2, while in the Fig. 6 the tail of cleaner 2 is sent to cleaner 1.
Structure 1 The liberation of the valuable mineral improves the grade of the final
concentrate and, consequently, increases the profit generated by the
Fig. 2. Optimal process structures obtained after 30,000 case studies. flotation circuit. However, under a scenario of high copper price, the
liberation of the valuable mineral present in the tail of cleaner 2 does
Table 4 not necessarily maximize the profit. With a high copper price, max-
Origin-destination matrices for example of flotation circuit with six stages and imizing copper recovery is increased in importance. Note that structure
two regrinding stages. 2 is the predominant structure obtained in Section 3.2.1.
R Gr1 C1 C2 S1 S2 Gr2 CS W P
It is important to comment that in all the examples, the postulation
of the superstructure and the formulation of the mathematical pro-
R o o x gramming model for the example of a flotation circuit with regrinding
Gr1 o o was generated using the procedure described by Cisternas et al. (2006).
C1 x o x x x o
C2 x x x x o
S1 o o o o x o o 4. Validation by global sensitivity analysis
S2 o o o o o x
Gr2 o o o o o
CS o x o o As mentioned earlier, the conclusion is established by dividing the
scenario-problem into a finite number of cases and proving each one
separately. Here, the performance of operating units and the “conver-
recovery and conversion with low probability of occurrence. Since re- sion” from one particle class to another particle class are represented by
covery and conversion are not constant in a plant (given the stochastic uniform distribution functions from which a sample formed by random
nature of the feeding characteristics), the chances that a low percentage values is obtained. The optimal design is obtained for all the values in
structure is optimal is also low. The predominant structure utilizes six the sample.
flotation stages and two regrinding stages. The first regrinding stage For each example of proof by construction, three uncertainty sce-
processed the rougher concentrate, and the product was sent to cleaner narios were considered, and each scenario was resolved 30,000 times.
1. The second regrinding stage processed the tails of cleaners 1 and 2, In the first scenario, uniform distributions were given to the recovery by
and the product was sent to the cleaner-scavenger. Note that the pre- stages and regrinding conversions. In the second scenario, uniform
dominant structure did not recirculate flows from the cleaner flotation distributions were given to the recovery by stages, and regrinding
stages to the rougher stage, which helps to reduce overloading of the conversions were not varied. Finally, in the third scenario, uniform

4
R. Acosta-Flores, et al.
Scenario 1
Fig. 3. Percentage of optimal process structures obtained after 30,000 case studies, copper price 3,500 US$/t.
Structure 2 Structure 3
Fig. 4. Predominant structure (left) and secondary structure in the three sce-
narios analyzed, copper price equal to 3,500 US$/t.
distributions were given to the regrinding conversions and stage re-
coveries were not varied. It is important to comment that only, to
corroborate the postulated hypothesis, we also considered structures
that were not obtained by construction. Results provided by code cor-
roborated that there are few optimal structures for a design problem
under uncertainty in flotation and regrinding units.
At this point, the following question ir raised: which input variables
(flotation stage, recoveries and regrinding conversions) has more effect
or is the predominant factor on the profit of the flotation circuit? This
question can be answered by global sensitivity analysis (GSA). GSA
allows studying how the uncertainty in the output of a mathematical
model or system can be distributed to the uncertainty in each input
variable over a range of interest. This analysis has already been used in
mineral processing, see Sepulveda et al. (2013). In this work, the
method of Sobol’-Jansen was used because this method has shown the
best performance when it was compared with other methods (Lucay
et al., 2020). This method implements sensitivity indices, which are
proportional to the influence of an input variable on the model output;
more details are available (Lilburne and Tarantola, 2009; F. A. Lucay
et al., 2019b).
The flotation circuit structure shown in Fig. 2 was used to perform
Scenario 1
Fig. 5. Percentage of optimal process structures obtained after 30,000 case studies, copper price equal to 5,000 US$/t.
Minerals Engineering 156 (2020) 106524
Scenario 2 Scenario 3
Structure 4
Fig. 6. Predominant structure in the three scenarios analyzed, copper price
equal to 5,000 US$/t.
the GSA. This was coded in GAMS, and its result is shown in Fig. 7.
In Fig. 7, ST and S1 are the total and first-order sensitivity indices
respectively. The higher their values, the higher the influence on the
output variable. The first three groups represent input variables asso-
ciated with the rougher, cleaner, and scavenger recoveries. The last
group of input variables represents conversion in the regrinding unit. It
is clear from Fig. 7 that the input variables rougher-SC.f2, rougher-
SC.f3, cleaner-SC.f2, and cleaner-SC.f3 are more influential on the
profit of the flotation circuit. These input variables are related to flo-
tation stages. In addition, the regrinding conversion uncertainties have
little effect on the profit uncertainty of the flotation circuit. In other
words, the profit of the circuit structure is more sensitive to the un-
certainty in the flotation units.
Scenario 2 Scenario 3
5
R. Acosta-Flores, et al.
Fig. 7. Effect of the magnitude of the uncertainty on the first order (S1) and total Sobol ' (ST) indices considering the profit maximization as process output.
5. Conclusions
In all the examples studied from an economic point of view, it was
observed that few structures are optimal for a wide range of values in
the performance of the flotation stages and the regrinding conversions.
Two methods of proof were used to confirm the postulated hypothesis:
proof by construction and proof by exhaustion. Nine examples, in-
cluding their scenarios, were used in the proof by construction, and a
total of 270,000 combinations of flotation stage recoveries and re-
grinding conversion were utilized in the proof by exhaustion. The effect
of copper price was analyzed, and as was expected, the copper price
affected the optimal flotation circuit structure. Besides, the GSA was
utilized to demonstrate that the uncertainties in flotation stage re-
coveries had more effect than regrinding conversion uncertainties in
profit.
This conclusion can allow separating the design of the flotation
circuits in two steps. First, a set of optimal flowsheet processes can be
identified using uniform distribution functions to represent the unit
operation performance and the regrinding conversions. Then, after se-
lecting a set of optimal processes, the equipment design parameters and
operating conditions can be defined based on simulation and laboratory
tests.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Renato Acosta-Flores: Investigation, Writing - original draft,
Writing - review & editing. Freddy A. Lucay: Investigation,
Methodology, Writing - original draft. Edelmira D. Gálvez:
Conceptualization, Resources, Funding acquisition, Writing - review &
editing. Luis A. Cisternas: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Validation, Funding acquisition, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
Financial support from ANID (Fondecyt 1180826) and ANID PIA
ACM170005 are gratefully acknowledged.
6
Minerals Engineering 156 (2020) 106524
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