Understanding the Agglomeration Behavior of Selected Copper Ores using Statistical Design of Experiments
Abstract
The drum agglomeration of two different crushed copper ores (I and II) has been optimized using Taguchi's L16 (45) orthogonal array design to determine the optimum conditions for maximizing the average agglomerate size and minimizing the amount of fines. The effects of controllable operating factors including moisture content (ore I: 9.6-11.1%; ore II: 12.8-14%), retention time (2-4 min), drum speed (15-45% critical), drum load (ore I: 13-32%; ore II: 6-24%) and acid concentration (6.5-90 g/L) on the performance of the agglomeration process were studied. For ore I, the maximum average agglomerate size and minimum percent fines (-1 mm) occurred under the conditions: drum load (22.75%), moisture (10.35%), time (4 min), drum speed (30% critical), and acid concentration (41 g/L), whereas for ore II, the same conditions occurred under the drum load (18%), moisture (13%), time (3 min), drum speed (30% critical), and acid concentration (30 g/L). Under the conditions studied for ore I, the most effective parameter for maximizing average agglomerate size and minimizing the amount of fines was found to be drum load. For ore I, time and acid concentration had a measurable effect on maximizing average agglomerate size, whereas moisture had a statistically significant effect on minimizing the amount of fines. For ore II, the most effective parameter for maximizing average agglomerate size and minimizing the amount of fines was found to be acid concentration. Time had a measurable effect on maximizing average agglomerate size, whereas the other variables did not affect the responses significantly for ore II.
Recommended Citation
N. Dhawan et al., "Understanding the Agglomeration Behavior of Selected Copper Ores using Statistical Design of Experiments," Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Review, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 13 - 25, Taylor & Francis Inc., Jan 2015.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1080/08827508.2013.825613
Department(s)
Materials Science and Engineering
Keywords and Phrases
Agglomeration; Crushed Ore; Drum Load; Moisture; Optimization; Taguchi Method
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
0882-7508; 1547-7401
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2015 Taylor & Francis Inc., All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Jan 2015
Comments
The authors acknowledge the funding from AMIRA under the P986 project.